Week of the White Cougar

The day started out bad: Paul “P-Diddy” Dusatko, Elijah, and Hawk all had to bail. I pick up Brian “Lots of muscles and tats but no nickname” Spiering and we head up. Brian’s never been to the Tor; that means today will be fun regardless of what happens. The Tor isn’t like other climbing areas and it’s always interesting to see a newcomer’s reaction to the place. We’re meeting Steve “Manny” Edwards and Normal Guy. Steve will be trying out his new route White Cougar (~12b) which he put up specifically for my birthday challenge, thanks Steve. Normal Guy is hoping for some good redpoint failures on the new High Karate (12d).

The weather was great: a bit on the cold side. There were some minor showers, but that never affects climbing at the Tor. My 14 laps went quite well (Power, Sea, White Cougar four times, Chips, Pro Skill, Shatterhand, The Natural, AutoMagic, Hell, and Anchor twice). Aside from my left hand cramping severely on lap six, my day was pretty uneventful; just extremely tiring. My goal is to up the volume or interval speed every weekend without it feeling more difficult than the previous weekend. So far, things are going as planned. Brian helped out quite a bit by constantly cutting his climbing short so that I could stay on schedule; thanks Brian. He also took the photo below.

Normal Guy succeeded on High Karate, getting in three or four solid redpoint failures and Manny looked good on his new route. They actually had the energy to head back up on Sunday. Normal Guy redpointed High Karate, nabbing the second ascent. Manny came very close, but still fell short on White Cougar.

White Cougar (12b)