Progress

The past couple of days have been very busy for me. I finally learned how to trad climb on thursday on a couple of moderates. Its amazing to me how mental climbing can be. It was on a 5.8, easy angle route but the feeling of placing your own protection for the first time and not knowing wether or not those pieces will hold is exhilarating. Friday Audrey, who is also here for a month, showed up and we headed back out to the orange oswald wall to tick off some moderates. I took it easy for the first couple then got on the only route I had not done on the wall which was a one star 11, and it had one star for a reason. The beginning was fun but the top gave way to dirty, small, and thin holds. I could begin to feel my fingers swelling a bit while I was lowering off but didn't pay much attention to it. We then headed over to the coliseum, which held the route of the day, reckless abandon (12a). It was positioned beautifully right off the edge of the cliff to where you felt like you were climbing over the lake itself.  The beginning was great but the top gave way to more small crimping holds. As I began the sequence my left hand was locked on this thin crimp, not a good idea. I could feel all of my top knuckles bending backwards as I began to make the move. Pop! and I fell. The pain was intense, I pulled back up and finished the route but I began to feel what 3 days of climbing in a row can do to you. I iced and took ib proffen that night and the swelling did go down, just sore in the morning. I was debating on wether or not to take a rest day saturday, but we were heading back to the lake and I needed to climb. I onsighted a couple more tens at the gun wall that I had left and then made my way to the coliseum. A group of people were working on Apollo Reed and I joined in for a bit. I then moved down to Tobacco Road (12b). I felt so relaxed and fluid on the route and pulled the crux but couldn't stick the final move on the onsight. Every go after that became progressively worse and I began to get really down on myself. I took a little swim, relaxed and got back on apollo reed to work out the bottom crux. To my surprise I pulled it and the dyno after, real progress for the day. Rest day today, catch up on school work, and enjoy the beautiful weather that west virginia has to offer.