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!).