Thursday, January 22, 2009

There Will be Blood V10/11


It seems like I am always doing projects under the gun and tonight was no exception. I have been trying to link a short steep and very sharp overhang at Flag for a number of days now. Monday it got too hot though I was close. Tonight I raced around Boulder doing errands, one of which included buying a Petzl Tikka Plus headlamp. Thus I arrived at the parking lot at 4:30, about 45 minutes before sunset. Warming up for this problem is hard to do since the holds are so sharp and my fingers had barely recovered from the last session. Long story short, I didn't send until close to 6:30 totally by headlamp and sacrificed what was left of my skin on two fingers in the final attempt, hence the title of the problem. The weather is supposed to get worse tomorrow, putting an end to the nice temps we have been experiencing.

The problem goes straight up the Face Wall on the First Overhang Ridge from the obvious flake. There is still a somewhat eliminate-ish lower sitstart to do but I am very happy with the problem as it is one of the better FAs I have done on the mountain. The grade is at least V10 but I am proposing easy V11 as it feels much harder than any of the V10s I have done. The sitstart might be hard V11 or V12.

To finish I soloed the 50 foot 5.0 slab behind it and drank in the spectacular scene of the lights of Boulder below. A satisfying end to a difficult process. Now to let the skin come back.

Pictures and video of attempts to follow. The actual send was in the pitch dark.

6 comments:

sock hands said...

is the face wall same as king conquerer wall?

i guess all will be revealed in video.

word

Peter Beal said...

It's the same ridge as First Overhang, just uphill a bit.

Anonymous said...

Nice job Peter. If you're ever interested in a Poudre session let me know.

Seth Murphy

Anonymous said...

Nice Peter. I've done the slappy traverse from right into the sloppers, then topping out same holds. I don't think I could pull off on those holds. Is the left hand glued? Flag keeps giving...

wolak said...

yesterday, this problem saw two repeats.... Mike Moelter and Seth Sanford. It looked fun and drew blood.

Peter Beal said...

Interested to hear more about the repeats. The key left crimp was not glued