Morning at a rest stop in Montana (after a long drive that included a good view of the always-haunting-to-me spectre of the old Anaconda smelter stack, pictured above)…we pulled over near 9 p.m. last night to stop for the evening—I’d reached that point of exhaustion, after two nights of about six hours of sleep each, where I could barely be civil anymore. All I wanted to do was lie down, relax, and go to sleep. Earplugs in and blindfold on, I crashed into a weird dreamworld inspired by the television show Supernatural, in which I was a demon hunter, as was Kev, as was my neighbor, the musician. From this I awoke at 8:30 a.m., much refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to move on with our travels and the day.

Dumpy is so comfortable! And thank God, we stopped in Billings yesterday and got new tires—the old ones were cracked and practically worn through, and we were lucky to make it to Billings without a blowout. New tires on, we rolled onto the Interstate to start our journey, “toodling,” as we decided to put it, since this rig ain’t going fast anywhere. Jedi riding in the truck bed on the crash mat, drooling and panting everywhere but at least separated from us by panes of plexiglass and real glass, and Sassy chilling inside Dumpy, where she’s already much at home (helping herself to Jedi’s food at the moment, which he’s completely okay with).

Some hours later, pulling off here, and the only thing that woke me in the middle of the night was Sassy meowing on the benches; for some reason, she needs me to put her on the bed, not sure she’s allowed or something? Since it’s easy enough for her to crawl up there herself. I grabbed her and dumped her on the bed, and she curled up and went to sleep, as did I.

The smell of thick, fragrant piney evergreens saturates the air here, near the border of Idaho, and we’re out of the desert-ish landscape and into the more mountainous, higher elevations at the moment. Cold this morning here, turned the heater on and got it nice and warm here, despite Jedi’s suspicious glances and balks at the creaking metal panels belching out warmth for us. Made my coffee, and now we’re about ready to start our driving again…

Our first morning in Dumpy, so appropriately spent in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Billings. After a frenzied morning of packing up the rest of Dumpy yesterday, stopping and talking with three neighbors before leaving, and seeing G. off after all of his hard work renovating Dumpy, we loaded into the truck, got the pets in gear—Jedi in the back of the truck, and Sassy in Dumpy—and started off on our journey to Billings, where we taught a clinic last night to the Steepworld Climbing Team.

Tired out and sore as could be, nonetheless after a little warming up and a good, solid stretching session of more than half an hour, I felt revved up and ready to share as much knowledge as I could with the kids in Billings—first the junior team, and then the senior team. It’s so hard to convey information in such a short period of time—I always feel like I’m throwing a giant, heavy book at clinic participants, saying, “Catch! You have an hour to absorb all of this!” It’s tough, for sure, but I believe that even if each person takes away one or two key pointers or points that applies to them individually, then that’s good enough. I certainly appreciated the help from the coaches tremendously, from the pre-setting of the routes that I requested in advance, to the helping to handle the groups of kids and assisting in teaching the points we were trying to convey. And overall, these kids were superb, trying their hardest, encouraging one another, listening attentively, asking good and smart questions, and working well together despite wild variances in climbing experience and ability.

We ran way overtime in both sessions, not rolling into Wal-Mart to eat until long after 9 p.m. Starving, I hacked off some broccoli florets and pouring out some dressing, crunching and devouring to try to stave off the hunger…ahh. Even when the 85-year-old security dude—one of those “I’ve got one job and I take it way too seriously”—knocked and asked us to move so that he could keep all of the campers in one place to make it easier for him to watch all of us, I just stayed in Dumpy to eat and observe the pets. Jedi looked astonished when the floor beneath him inexplicably began to move; after all, he’d been riding in the truck all day and probably hadn’t realized that Dumpy moves yet, or at least, not what it would feel like. Sassy, on the other hand, was like, “Yeah, yeah, I get this already.” She didn’t even have her usual first-off motion sickness that she tends to begin each road trip with. Both of them seem pretty psyched on the camper, though—it’s a lot more space for us to all hang out together.

Woke up way too early this morning, though, after staying up way past midnight. For some reason, I couldn’t sleep after quarter to seven, and after reading for awhile, I gave up and got up, made coffee, read my morning reading, and just got the trailer a little more sorted out. Sassy was stoked to just cuddle on the bed, while Jedi just rested on the floor.

Today, then, we’ve got to go get some new tires for Dumpy, and then we’re off on our adventure, free to climb for ourselves and do our own thing for a good, solid chunk of time now. After the frenzy of the summer, with some 35 people visiting at the house and far, far more hanging out with us in the canyon, I’m psyched to be the visitors now for a time, to not be the hosts but to just check out new stuff and wander about. Head off on a journey, with nothing on our plates for a while but climbing and training, with a little writing thrown into the mix.

Magical…yesterday was magical. I woke up full of energy, feeling super-positive and upbeat, despite knowing that it was supposed to be the final day of climbing here for us for the season and that I STILL had to try to send my project (though it’d already been decided that if I didn’t, we could return after teaching the Billings clinic and I could take as long as I wanted until the weather pushed me out). Still, I knew it’d be better to just go from there, save the gas money and all, as planned. But nonetheless, I felt relaxed, happy, and unpressured, after days of a steady stream of saturating my being with only positive thoughts and images, slicing and dicing away any negative, intrusive thoughts that invaded my psyche. Continuously feeding myself positivity (“I’m getting stronger every day,” etc.) and envisioning myself down to the detail of what I’d be wearing to send the route had become routine for me.

So, after a good meditation sesh during which I visualized the route three times fully, I prepared for the day, dragged Kev out of bed, and got us up there and hiking pretty quickly. My calves were sort of sore and crampy on the hike up, but I told myself that it was just my muscles stretching out for the day.

My standard warm-up—two laps on a moderate and then two on a mid-range route for me—felt so easy that it was insane. The moderate did nothing to my arms, no soreness whatsoever, and the mid-range, which I have shamelessly dialed, felt easier than ever—so much so that I skipped moves that I normally do, instead choosing longer pulls, and it felt super casual.

On to the project, I tied in, came super-close (yet again), but this time, super-close meant even closer. I didn’t let it bother me when I fell, fingers numb (it’s late-season for climbing so high in the canyon, for sure)…I just figured it was my warm-up burn. Forty-five minutes later I tied in again, powered up all of the moves to that same place, latched the little pocket, clamped my fingers down, put my foot up high, and landed my right hand thankfully into the jug. Knowing the top so well (it goes on for about three spaced bolts after the lengthy tour de power endurance up to the first set of jugs), I just rested until full recovery had set in—breathing and heart rate down to normal, and plowed ahead, finishing the route feeling strong, confident, and not pumped.

After I lowered off, Kev gave me a hug, and G. rushed in, too, saying, “Group hug!” It was cool, a spontaneous sharing of positive energy, and I’d felt those guys’ hope and desire for me to do the route, too—it definitely helped to feel that vibe and support.

I weirdly had felt that I would send the route, and I did—but weirdly, too, hadn’t expected to send it, giving myself the freedom to just climb and enjoy. I’d told myself that what happened, happened, and I had taken some time during the HERA event to really think about it, to realize that I love this route and I should just enjoy our time together, however long it turned out to be. Seeing the photos that were taken of me on it helped with that, too—they made me feel warmth for the route, which is good; I still loved it even after all of the battles we’d been through together. Cuz it’s just, as one much stronger climber put it after demolishing it rapidly, “a 10-star route.” And that’s pretty f’ing cool; there aren’t that many of those out there. It’s one of the finest climbs I’ve ever done, for sure.

And, it also taught me a huge and necessary lesson about the true meaning of power endurance. This is what happens when no move on a route feels super-hard, but putting them all together is the crux. So you just keep moving your high point up, move by move by move, always looking “close,” and EASILY one hanging the thing forever (if it’s near your limit), but not being able to put it together until you actually build the fitness for the route, which is what I did. I built the pull power up enough to pull between the moves. And when I took a break from doing pull-ups in the middle of the summer (thinking I was “close to sending”—ha ha ha, that seems funny now b/c I wasn’t at ALL!), I actually slowed my progress because the pull-ups were contributing to my increase in power endurance. Because I’m still such a pull-up baby, all things considered!

But also, I learned (with a little primer from A.J., too) about how much I need to work on contact strength, because the instead I changed from pulling statically between the long moves on the route to dynamic movement, that’s when I turned sloppy and fell after high-fiving the next hold I was aiming for. I even managed to refine the “necessary” dynamic moves into near-static movement, slow and controlled. So, in essence, I probably developed much more power endurance than someone who has better contact strength than me would’ve needed—so what I’m trying to say here is simply that I need to campus! My accuracy in dynamic movement ain’t the problem here—it’s that I have so much trouble hanging on when I hit the hold.

Anyhow, that’s enough self-analysis here; I know what I need to work on and I aim to spend the winter doing it, while I climb part of the time and only train part of the time. And I was so stoked to send the route that I onsighted a new route of a hard grade for me nearby to get the draws off of it—a 20+ minute fight up a desperately crimpy slabbish affair that I actually enjoyed much more than I thought I would. Not a bad way to end my season here, to say the least! I live for climbing days like yesterday—they’re what keeps the fire burning and blazing after all these years (16 of 'em!).

I just finished writing a profile assignment that came in unexpectedly this afternoon—thankfully it was a pretty easy one, with just the right amount of material provided to write it with ease. I’ll edit and send it tomorrow before climbing, and then go climbing, come back, get the rest of my stuff packed up for Salt Lake (which means everything I need, since I haven’t packed anything yet), and be ready to go Thursday morning. I’m tiiiirrrred, though.

In fact, my right triceps (I think it’s plural even when you’re talking about one muscle, but I’m too lazy to look it up right now) is still a little sore from the weekend—mostly just from Saturday night’s impromptu après-dinner bouldering session, which came about AFTER a full day of climbing in the canyon. It was a cold, full day, too, marked by a few rain sprinkles here and there. Nonetheless, it was a fun one, with great quotes and silliness from the two ladies that came up from Colorado to check it out, along with the two who came over from Cody.

I particularly enjoyed A.J.’s revelation upon coming down from the Behemoth: “I LIKE sport climbing!” Primarily a boulderer, she proved that she can and will be a fantastic sport climber in short time if she goes for it; she flashed a 13a-ish bouldery route that has spanked many a dude (but alas, I do think she thought some of the pumpy enduro 5.11’s were harder than that route; sigh, such is the way of the boulderer!) The other Colorado lady waltzed up a bunch of 12s, showing that shortness can be a strength when applied well—very cool. Other favorite moments included H.E.’s dog attempting to climb up a route after her (see above), and just the general mayhem that happens when you put together six women, two photographers, and an assorted male support team trying to get some particular shots all in a cold weekend’s work.

Oh, and back to the bouldering session…yeah, that was just one of those, “Hey, do you want to check out the gym?” moments that turned into two hours of pulling down after dinner. Having not bouldered since last February, I got whooped up on and I NEED to do pull-ups and work my contact strength, for sure—especially now since I made the deal with A.J. to do that comp next summer! It was totally worth the soreness, though; I cannot remember the last time I laughed so hard, rolling around on the mattresses holding my stomach with two other ladies (the guys actually sat this sesh out, for the most part, choosing to watch us gals jump around) as we sent one another into gales of giggles. Good stuff!