Since I last blogged we have been out in Colorado, climbing as much as possible! We have been staying in Boulder and I really like it as a town; good climbing scene, nice people, good coffee! And, of course, in one direction you have Rocky Mountain National Park and in the other, Mount Evans, Guanella Pass and Lincoln Lake. Not bad. The only negative thing I can find is the amount of driving, the park is the closest of those listed and takes an hour to get to at least. But that is nothing really and we get laughed at for thinking that is long, us English are just not used to long drives American style!

I’m not sure where to start…we have had lots of great days out. There are lots of boulders I am psyched to climb here but I guess I will talk about the ones I just managed and hopefully I will have the opportunity to do the ones I have not yet managed soon!

I will start with Guanella Pass. We arranged to go a week or so ago with Angie as she had tried a problem there and wanted to go back for it. The area is just past Mount Evans and is right by the road (a nice break from the long walks!). It isn’t a very big area but it has some good problems. Angie was trying Mind Matters, a V12 that goes up the centre of a big boulder. The problem centres around a hard move from a bad pinch and makes for great climbing. David, Shauna and I tried the moves on the problem and were all very keen to try it again. Angie sent it that day, very impressive to watch especially because it was a very hot day. We went back a week later (in the evening for the colder temps) and all three of us managed to climb it! Mine was very much a “one more go” moment when I was really tired so I was especailly surprised and happy to find myself on top of thr boulder.

Here is a little video:

Mind Matters V12, Guanella Pass from mina leslie-wujastyk on Vimeo.

One rest day and then we headed back to Lincoln Lake. I had two problems I wanted to do this day, both I had tried before and was keen to finish. The first, Phobos is an overhanging V10 with big moves – not usually my forte….but really fun climbing! On my first session I had been falling off the last hard section so I was positive and hoped that it would go down fairly quickly. It was not to be so. I had a real fight lined up! I dropped the end section multiple times, I even got past the hard climbing once and my foot popped on the easier mantle section. It was going to be a battle. I had a 30 minute rest and then had another go. Fell again. One more try and I was finally topping out! I was so exhausted by this point (bear in mind all this is going on at an elevation of 12,000 ish ft).

I watched other people for a while and rested, gearing up to try Unshackled, my second aim for the day. I was pretty tired by the time we got to the boulder and it was getting pretty dark. Unshackled is a V9/10 which follows a crackline through a steep roof.

Unshackled (V9/10) the first day I tried it, Lincoln Lake. Photo David Mason

I had tried it before and got very close but I was very tired now and didn’t have another Phobos-esque fight left in me. I didn’t warm up again, I just pulled on and had a go. I tried hard and somehow ended up on top. My fingers went numb at the end and I had horrible hot aches after but I was happy to have done it and not to have another epic. All that was left was the walk out….

Here is a little video from the day:

Little Days Out, A Summer in Colorado: Part 2 from mina leslie-wujastyk on Vimeo.

Here is another video from earlier in the trip too:

Little Days Out, A Summer in Colorado: Part 1 from mina leslie-wujastyk on Vimeo.

Having arrived and spent a few days in Colorado, I was really psyched to climb on rock so it was a bit strange to put that on hold and head to Vail for the World Cup. Don’t get me wrong, I was psyched for the competition but it was an odd transfer from being really excited for rock to getting ready to try hard on plastic. We set off from Boulder with a van full of people and it looked to be a good weekend; everyone was feeling good, the weather was nice and the views on the drive spectacular.

I was excited for the qualifiing round, in a good mood and ready to do my best. I really enjoyed this round, I felt I climbed well although I could have climbed better…I have a tendency to mess up on the last moves of problems. I am still not sure if this is often because the last moves are really hard or if I psyche myself out when I get there. Perhaps a combination. The third problem was the highlight of the whole weekend for me. It was a backwards double dyno out of a roof with a burly, basic finish up a steep wall. I looked at the problem, pulled into the start position for the jump and thought “hmmm this might be beyond me but I’ll have a throw” . I caught the jump first go and pushed throught to the top, suprising myself by flashing the problem. I can’t describe the adrenalin and psyche that I had at that moment, that must be what it feels like to be one of the top people that just pulls it out of the bag all the time!

Problem 3 (qualifiers), Photo by David Mason

Problem 1 (qualifiers), Photo Will Hummel

Problem 4 (semi finals), Photo by Will Hummel

I qualified for the semi finals in 16th place. Very happy. I had acheived my goal by making the semis but I was still eager to do well the next day. I won’t go into tons of detail but I didn’t climb very well  in the semis. I made lots of silly mistakes, misread the problems and generally just didn’t sort myself out. I am not sure what went wrong really, I don’t think the problems were far beyond me…I just seemed to be missing some kind of something!

Well done again to Shauna who keeps doing brilliantly!

Shauna on the Podium, Photo by David Mason

We spent the next day chilling before heading back to Boulder. On the monday we went up to Lincoln Lake, a beautiful location. You park at about 13,000ft and walk down to climb just below 12,000ft. The air feels really thin up there and you really notice it on the walk back up to the car! The climbing there was better than I expected and I am psyched to go back to finish off a cool problem that I nearly did.  As I didn’t actually get up anything that day all I have to offer for the end of this blog is some footage of some pretty cool (I’m sure you’ll agree…) dance moves that I was taught by Chris Webb-Parsons. To give it a context, you must know that I have “Kiss” by Prince playing though headphones while I’m doing it (if you play the song while watching it it works a lot better)….see if you can spot the following moves:

1. Supermarket shopping

2. Hanging up washing.

3. Feeding the chickens.

4. Mowing the lawn (first getting the mower going..)

5. Driving a bus.

Filmed by the infamous Shauna Coxsey