A Great Day At Sportrock

As I mentioned a week or two ago, there was a double heel-hooking, slightly inverted V4 in the far corner of the bouldering area at Sportrock that was giving me a lot of trouble – I simply couldn’t figure out the second to last move before topping out.

I’d been running over the problem in my head ever since the first evening I attempted it, mentally trying to work out the issues I was having. As I was in the shower this morning, thinking about rock climbing and that V4 (it’s odd I know, but most of my great ideas come to me in the shower), I came up with another potential solution to completing the V4.

I met my brother at Sportrock at 3 PM for a couple hours of climbing. We spent our time bouldering, running through most of the V0s, V1s and V2s. He went to take his basic skills class at 4 PM to learn how to belay, and I decided to take another look at the notorious V4. I decided I would match on the large hold before making the last two big moves, ultimately switching my hands from the way I had been trying it. I made the short move with my left hand this time (instead of my right), which was as far as I had ever gotten and felt better than previous attempts. Moved my feet to center my weight for the next move I had to make (the move I hadn’t been able to get), and with one quick lunge (and a bit of a yell, something I never do) reached with my right hand and got two fingers into the side-pull crimp. I had no idea what the hold was like, but managed to hold it long enough to get my hips back into the wall. Topping out from there was easy.

I was SO stoked to finally complete that problem (although, nobody was there to see it), and now have my sights set on two other V4s with challenging moves. Each of them contains slopers, something I’ve never been good at. Hopefully with consistent practice and determination, I can get those figured out over the course of the next week or two.

I haven’t been looking at any V5s lately, as I’ve been forcing myself to focus almost entirely on technique and not muscling my way through bouldering problems. While that means I’ve been spending more time on V2s and V3s as of late, I know that in the long run having proper technique is going to go a lot further than brute strength.