umbrella tree

amanda made me really jealous the other night when she told me about her 5.10+ in the midst of recouping from her foot puncture, so i decided that erica and i needed to get on some rock again. we've been a bit sad about the recent lapse in climbing, but standing around belaying in the cold just isn't so fun, as we learned when we were on "the young and the rackless" a month ago.

remedy: last night erica and i went bouldering at the boulder rock club, where we saw a bunch of semi-famous climbers from the boulder scene. our hands were toasted after - gym climbing always makes me feel like i have millions of needles stuck in my hands, like they've been stretched open. ugh.

today, we visited the umbrella tree at flagstaff mountain, which was one of the first climbs we stumbled upon in boulder while out hiking with alf one day. it gets a lot of sun, so good in winter, bad (burning rock) in summer.

gregory canyon.
 

back of the first flatiron on the left, saddle rock on the ridge to the right, green mountain in the middle. we visited saddle rock a few weeks ago, where i enjoyed a fun, infrequently visited scramble. erica and alfie got a little mad at the wait though...there have been a bunch of signs around boulder's parks warning of mountain lion risk and the need to leash dogs - scarycool!
 

so, umbrella tree. i first climbed the center 5.10, then erica did the 5.7(?) to the left that i'm on here. this was about the hardest 5.7 i've been on, but the bulges sure were fun. erica did an impressive job of zipping right up the crux...i, on the other hand, pondered for a bit before performing a weird half mantle. on the 5.10, there's an interesting (juggy and conglomerate) boulder problem on the top ledge just below the anchor - i was super pumped, so it took me a minute, a motivating word or two, and a few false starts to top out.


as you can see, i gots me a beard! i was supposed to trim this for thanksgiving. oops.