A Brief Moment of Self Aggrandizing Glory

     Normally I try to keep the spray to a minimum here on the site, but today is different. Today (yesterday, actually) I sent Purity Control at the Millennium Boulder. Big deal, you might say. Quite a few people have done this problem, and the grade wasn't even cutting edge a decade ago. Well, I don’t care. To my best estimate, I have spent thirty days trying this boulder. Thirty days over three-ish years. And now it’s done. I used to have a piece of paper stapled to my wall that I would write on every time I tried the problem. After eighteen days I tore the paper off the wall, as every entry said something like “stuck first move two out of twenty tries then tore massive flappers.” Rage! Today, though, I stuck the first move seven out of eight times.

    Climbing can be such a difficult mental challenge and it is hard for me to be patient and really make every attempt count. Usually when I get remotely close to doing a problem I’ll go into attack mode and throw myself at the problem until it gives in, but today I knew I had to try a different approach. I told myself that if I was patient with the set-up for the second move and if I focused all my attention on the hold I was going for I’d do the problem. When I pulled on the wall for the eighth time I made sure my feet were in the proper location and my weight was balanced correctly before I moved to the left hand pocket. Amazingly, my hand hit the hold in the perfect position and I didn’t need to readjust. I brought my left foot up to the edge, making sure it was set before rolling my left hand into a crimp. I looked up at the right hand slot/edge and told myself to focus on that hold and that hold alone. An instant later I was watching my hand grab the edge and I continued to watch it as my legs swung out from the wall. The swing was greater than I expected but I knew there was no chance of falling. I brought my feet back onto the wall and had to push aside thoughts of relief and success so I could concentrate on the remaining easy moves. When I grabbed the lip I started laughing. I had imagined this moment for almost three years, and it felt better than I could ever have thought.

    Purity Control is neither the hardest nor the best problem I have done, but it does have a special place in my mind. It was the first legitimate hard climb I ever tried, years ago when it was well above my ability level. I’ve tried it in every season in all conditions imaginable, with too many different people to count. I’ve watched the segment in Colorado Daydream hundreds of times and dreamt about sticking the second move before I’d ever sent V8. I’ve watched Chuck Fryberger do the climb completely static two times in a row and I even (randomly) saw Fred Nicole fire the rig in the most graceful series of movements I’ve ever witnessed. And now it’s done. Sending the problem felt good, but I also felt that I did the problem well; that I executed as flawless an ascent as I could manage. I have never felt this much satisfaction from a climb, and the Pumpkin Pie ice cream cone I had from Red Trolley afterwords was well deserved.

Photos, Psych, and Tortas by Ash