Sawmill Sunday

I got to ride in Nic's new Yaris, much to the chagrin of Pi, who road in Chris Hirsch's Escort. You can fit 2 pads in a Yaris with the back seat up, and 4-5 with the back seats down. And we got 35 mpg going 75 the whole way.
On a four hour drive in tandem, things can get silly. Fruit bombing one another's cars entertained us for the last two hours of the drive and had our faces aching from laughter.
It was bright and sunny out, but the air was still cool. Conditions were perfect. Pi hadn't been up here in a while, and was unfamiliar, somehow, with the western end of the boulder field. The slab, Vag Badger & Poppy Cock, everything there was new to him. We showed him around, and ended at a previously unclimbed line on the backside of the split open Backslapper boulder. Jim Merli had suggested the line before, and the boys were intrigued enough to clean it up and give it a go.
I don't know why the name "Foreplay" had been suggested. It seemed like it was the next name in line in their back-log of potential names for new boulder problems. The immature, yet hysterical, conversation was primed and driven by the proposed name. I left a fragment of that in the video..."balls" aren't a swear word, right?
Here's my second video I've made today with iMovie...sweet...



After that we headed back to the main area, where I intended to try Sticky Icky again. But first we had to go around to the east side and check out a few other unclimbed lines...uncleaned...unattempted...makes them so much more tempting.
But I still, like always, had unfinished business on the arete of Jim's boulder. It was starting to get cool, so the guys built a little stone fire ring and started a fire with the bark from a huge fallen birch tree next to us. Birch bark is VERY flammable...as these pictures Nic took of Pi suggest...







(Images of Pi on Fire by Nic Oklobzija)

(I've finally typed Nic's screwed up last name enough to know how to spell it by heart now.)

So anyways, I gave Sticky Icky a few goes, but was unable to consistantly keep the first heel hook on a thin crimp. The last time I worked it sucessfully, (2 seasons ago?) I was wearing old Anasazi's, with the flat mounted heel, that makes for a nice little edge-grabber for heel hooking little stuff. I determined then that it was a lot easier to do it with that particularly styled heel, while I watched everyone else's heel easily slip off it. But my heel, with my Anasazi's, would stick most every time, with out too much effort.....didn't bring the Anasazi's along...damn. My foot did stick a few times well enough to stick the move before the jug, but then it slipped off. I also noticed the first right foot was spliting from the boulder. I'd better do it quick, before someone breaks it off. I won't forget my left Anasazi next time! Hopefully it will be a cool summer, and the northern boulder fields stay cool and climbable. Seeing as we didn't have a spring season at all this year, I just think that's fair.