Friday, December 24, 2010

Fall 2010 update

Happy holidays everyone! Been a while since I posted, so here is an update.... during late summer I was working on three different projects in my home region. Two trad lines in the Adirondacks and one super long term line at the Marshfield cliff in VT that is mixed with bolts and some gear. I have been trying this line for over three seasons, it took me a season and a half just to figure out and do each move. I might have done it last fall but was stymied by incipient seeps that formed on a couple of crux holds. This year after a long dry spell I poured everything I had into it and managed to send it in late September. Its called 'Stoning the Fascist' and felt somewhere in the mid to upper 5.14 range for me. It was a bit hard to grade due to being not my style....quite a bit more bouldery and less sustained than the other hardest routes I've done... so I suggested 5.14b. It always amazes me how after two years of the route feeling impossible, when I finally did it I felt like I could have lowered down and done it again straight away...such a cool process how your body learns and understands the movement and your mind learns to believe...

The middle crux of Stoning the Fascist.

The first crux of Stoning the Fascist...one of the best boulder
problems I've ever done on a rope.


A couple of weeks after sending the Fascist a great evil thing called a hurricane charged up the east coast outta the carribean and sent a deluge from hell over New England....4 inches of rain over two days. That pretty much ended my hopes of sending either of the other projects I wanted to do this fall. They both got wet and stayed wet...game off in the first week of October....time to hit the gym and train a bit for a trip to Kentucky and the Red River Gorge.
Trying a line at the Gold Coast, Red River Gorge.

After a few failed attempts to find a suitable project for my two week trip, I resigned to just trying lots of routes and onsights. I ended up onsighting 4 13a's, flashing a 13a and a 13b, redpointing three other 13b's, two 13'c second try, and a pesky 13d (pictured below) called Swing Line that I'd tried a bit on a previous trip.

Onsighting 'Easy Rider' a new 13a at Drive by.


After returning to Vermont from Kentucky I got an invite to a rare occurrence, an adult route competition at Allez Up climbing gym in Montreal. I've only had the chance to compete in a roped route comp twice before at the US Nationals Route Comp, last year(where I punted hard) and a few years ago.
Anyway it gave me something to look forward to and to train for in the growing darkness of December here in the north. Here are a few pics taken by the gyms manager Nic Charron, of a qualifier route and the final route which I managed to onsight to win the comp. Being a route setter it was a real treat to be on the receiving end for a change and get to try to flash and onsight four quality routes over the course of the weekend...props to head setter Fred Charron and his crew for the great comp!


Happy New Year
Peter Kamitses
Burlington, Vermont

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