Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Hot Weekend at Black Mt.

Well you guessed it, I spent a hot couple of days this weekend (actually Fri-Sat) up at Black Mt with Maya and a great crew including Brett, Marina, The Axelrads, and Jake. We spent Friday evening at the amazing Captain's Junk boulder and sampled most of what it had to offer.

Brett attempting some mantle hardness.
Eden trying hard
Itai Axelrad on the Captain's classic v4 face/arete.
Marina on the same
About the time the sun went down the temps finally got good(ish), so the twins and I decided to throw down on the Captain's Junk project ... to no send.  We all worked out beta and made good links, but we'll see if one of us sends the Gloworm Project first.

Itai Axelrad on the Captain's Junk proj. Still a project ...
A long night session on the beautiful project gave way to a fun little non-camp-fire (there is currently a fire ban in the mountains) back at camp.

When we woke around 8 am, it was already starting to warm up nicely. By the time I got the crew over to Born Under Punches, following some action on Big Greenie, which I personally chose to skip, the slopers already felt like butter. Nevertheless, the twins were both eventually able to pull out sends.

Itai on "Born Under Punches" (v7)
The punch
The elusive Will Chow makes an appearance!
From here we marched up a little closer to the summit area, where there lies one of the best v4s at Black, a flowing lip traverse with nicely sculpted holds on bullet rock.

Jake Hines on the classic v4 ... so classic I don't know its name or if it has one.
Further down the hill is a corridor of boulders where I've spent a few afternoons. While the rest of the group worked the slopey face problem, I cleaned and worked a possible new project just above. A few savage compression moves on horrible sidepull crimps lead you to a chuck for a nice sloper on the lip. The bottom eluded me, but I can tell that it goes. From this boulder you get a great view of the flying saucer-like  Once Upon a Time boulder, an amazing landmark.

Maya instragram photo of her perch while I worked the crimpy compression project.
"Once Upon a Time" (V3 R/X) and the rolling San Jacinto Mountains.

In the end, it got too hot and we all heard Chipotle calling our names, so we hit the road and headed home (but not until after fat burritos).  Hopefully we'll be heading up again soon, so stay tuned, and stay psyched!

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