Propaganda

I had an amazing day of climbing today at Little Si. It was one of those days where everything just clicks, and you are so grateful that you are a climber. I knew it was going to be a good day when I made it up the hike in without getting totally out of breath and with minimal sweating. Nick was back in town, it was great to catch up with him, and feed off of his motivation. Nick was psyched to get on Propaganda, he had all the beta mapped out on a piece of paper (which he left in the car!), so after a quick warm up on Aborigine we hopped on it. On my first go I got schooled, I couldn't fathom the crux, and was pulling up on draws the whole way skipping over hard sections. Nick helped me figure out a few moves, so that on my second go I managed to come up with a way that got me through the crux. It involved a heinous fully extended double gaston move where you then had to hike your feet up and stab for another gaston. I can't believe it worked, but it did. I still struggled a lot on the rest of it, I think I probably 6 hanged it that go. After Nick had his go on it, and did considerably better than me, and I rested some more, and tried again. Somehow my crux beta worked, and I was up at the no hands rest. I was stoked to make this much progress, and I figured I better try really hard on this attempt since I might not make it up there again.

This time I climbed it much more efficiently and even figured out some better beta on the fly. Next thing I knew I was at the chains. WOW! Did that really just happen? I went from flailing all over it, to the send so quickly. Unfortunately Nick didn't get the send even though he probably deserved it more than I did, but I can tell he took a lot of pleasure from my send though. As for the grade, I don't know, but when I was working it, it felt so much harder than Gerbil Killer the 13a next to it. As an added bonus, I ran into the extremely talented and very friendly climber Jonathan Siegrest again and got to see him get the second ascent of Wide World of Fitness 14b/c!

I'm headed back to Little Si Thursday, and I've got a good vibe about it already!