Feelin' Hot, Hot, Gross

BLEH.

I'm convinced my climbing appetite can never be satisfied by this miserable Summer weather. Sure, freedom from the suffocating stress of school and the careless feeling of schedule free, lazy days is nice, but when those lazy days involve climbing and when that climbing entails losing five pounds of weight through sweat, I begin to go a little stir crazy in the Summertime.

And of course, when it's not 189 degrees out, it's pouring rain.

Well, I am attempting to make the best of this swampy Summer season, most recently at Gnarnia this past weekend, when Spook and I gave Evan and Izzy a tour of the new boulderfield.

At the Wardrobe, Spook took down my project Flesh Failures and called it V6. I personally believe it to be at least one grade harder but a lil sandbagging never hurt. Evan was interested in the very obvious undone line in the middle of the boulder, and with some new sharp crimp beta he almost stuck the crux move, but split a tip and had to call it off. He feels its somewhere in the V8/9 range.

With the temperatures rising rapidly we roamed on up to the Gnarwhal with its newly made, professional platform... which is more like a patio as it is somewhere around 100 square feet.

We enjoyed some lunch, then got to work on Unicorn of the Sea Super Stand - V5, which is quickly becoming a classic of the area. The problem works through some fun arete moves on large sloping ledges to a committing heel hook and top out, and with the newly installed platform you don't have to worry about dying! Yay!

Evan and I also made a quick exploration of the Mole People Crevasse to find that it is, as I had hoped, flippin' sweet. 100 foot high walls on both sides produce a 2-3 foot wide corridor that gets a lot of daylight and is easy to navigate. It leads to a beautiful lookout on top of a ledge somewhere on the cliffs.

We then finished our day at the Treeboob Boulder, where Izzy dispatched another classic, Stuff of Dreams - V4. Evan became interested in the Sleepyhead Sit project, which climbs a slopey arete to an interesting finish, he thought it could be V9/10. Finally, Spook took down another FA, a VERY fun slopey arete which he called Chilled Soup - V5, something we all might have liked to have on this sweltering day.

I'll be back for a very interesting looking crimp seam traverse thing on the boulder I'm calling The Room this weekend.

On this last visit, I realized that Gnarnia no longer felt like a developing area, but a semi-developed boulder field. At this point I've decided to begin compiling a guidebook to the spot, partly because I am bored and also because I need some practice for the big guidebook project.

Below is a list of the current problems at Gnarnia (including obvious projects) and their star ratings out of five. If you object to the ratings comment!

The Wardrobe

• Prince Caspian Left - Project - V7/8?
  
• Prince Caspian Right - V2*
• Flesh Failures - V6*** (EDIT)
  
• Crimp Line - Project - V8/9?
  
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - V6***(EDIT)
• The Wardrobe - V3***

Treeboob

• P.U.S. - V3
• Sleepyhead Stand - Project - V7/8?
  
• Sleepyhead Sit - Project - V9/10?
  
• Stuff of Dreams - V4****(EDIT)
• Vanilla Slice - V5**
• Chilled Soup - V5***

Gnarwhal

• Unicorn of the Sea - V9****
• Unicorn of the Sea Super Stand - V5****
• Unicorn of the Sea Sit - Project - V11/12?
• Gnar Wars - Project
  

Chocolate Chip

• Benjamin Franklin - V1*
• Tollhouse - V3**
• Cookie Dough - V2*
• Ghetto Chip Malfunction - Project - V6?

The Room

• The Room - Project
  

Commence Comments
-WB