Claire Bell Reports

Claire Bell (formerly Claire Murphy) sent us the folllwing report of her latest hard tick over the pond. Slider Sit Start V10 (V10++ for me) This route has been a journey. Let me start by saying that I have never felt so happy topping out a boulder.  You could hear my yoohooos all the way across the boulder field. I didn?t just feel happy for myself, but also for Tim who had so faithfully prioritized my project above any of his the whole winter. We never planned on making so many trips to Horse Pens 40, but the sit start moves to Slider proved to be my biggest challenge on a boulder problem yet. I wanted to do these moves so badly, 3 hand moves and 2 foot moves to the start of Slider, and when I finally climbed just that section I felt like I had risen to a new level in my climbing. If I focused too much on the crimping I had to do, then the rest of my body wouldn?t follow. I think that once I was strong enough in my fingers to relax a bit on the handholds, I could put more energy and focus into the rest of the movement. With the Alabama spring, warmer weather and moisture, it became tricky figuring out if the conditions were good enough or if I was just worn down from working the same problem for almost a whole season.  The problem just continued to keep me on my toes. I had to use a nothing hold as an intermediate to position my hips before the big move, and this hold was only usable for me if the conditions were perfect.  Too cold and my hands would go numb near the top, but too warm and I could not hold on? The weekend I climbed the problem, I fell high the first day and felt completely unmotivated to keep trying. I knew I could do it one day, eventually, and really didn?t care if this was possibly our last cold day of the spring.  I had just had my fill of this problem. I will give it one more burn tomorrow, I thought. So I fell high again the next day, and I really didn?t care at this point and got on it again after a short rest only to flow through all the moves and be standing on the top with the biggest smile on my face, oh and making a lot of noise.

QuellePlanetFear