bigger belly

A Bigger Belly is a tiny little squeezed in problem at Rubicon, revolving around 4 minging crozzly crimps. I had spent a bit of time trying it with Dan before he made the first ascent a couple of years ago – very impressive to watch. He “gave it” 8a+ at the time, its generally considered to be pretty hard – not many people can even pull off the ground, let alone do the moves. This is exactly the style of climbing that I am bad at – snatching between tiny death-crimps, with a dynamic last move to a “jug”. For some reason I had to do it. Fortunately I have bendy legs so I was able to use a heel hook that Dan hadn’t – clearly cheating,this made the first few moves much easier for me but it made the last move a lot harder.

Still one hard move is better than 4. Last summer I had a couple of session falling off the final jump move, and I hadn’t gone back to finish it off since then (a combination of not wanting to go to Rubicon, and having ruined a pulley in my middle finger). Although this problem is one of the worst and most minging things I have ever climbed on I needed to finish it off.

In September had a session on it for the first time in a year and felt much stronger on the tiny holds. I also got a new bit of foot beta which made the last move ever so slightly easier. Still, I had another session falling off the last move! I had invested too much skin into this problem, I wasn’t going to leave it. After a couple of rest days I went back on a cold(ish) morning and finally held the swing! Pretty satisfying as it means I never have to try it again! Although it’s the longest I have ever spent on anything (6 or 7 sessions I think) its not the hardest as the climbing totally doesn’t suit me, and each session was always cut short by ruined skin, rather than tired fingers.

After this I went to font. I might get my arm twisted into writing about that, or you might be spared.

Ned