Home Again, Home Again

Well the imaginary wonderland of the Family Vacation has come to an end. The girls, the little man and I are all back home. Unpacked and... needing some outside time. My old friend Marc is in town for a few days and after catching up we ran out to the Cornflakes Boulder to run the circuit. He is quite out of shape from being in school in Michigan, but as usual was able to do all the problems and in true form, humped a very humpable feature on the boulder. It was a pretty good evening session to get stretched out and back into shape.
Marc givin a little slap

Marc and Anna and the Cornflakes Boulder

On Saturday afternoon Clint and I went up on Cedar to meet some friends and climb some other classics. We met up with Matt and Bryant at the Cheese boulder and walked up to the Dirt Boss. This Boulder has gained in popularity since another generation of landscaping saw nearly every boulder clogging the underside pulled out and rolled away. There is now ample room for the old DB Traverse V3 and the No Cheating Traverse V7 actually works much better with room to swing around and no jagged boulders waiting to bite you should you lose tension. Also the ground is now low enough to start on the giant cheater stone underneath which gave rise to the Bloc Party Problems, a half dozen V2 to V4 roof problems all beginning on the same start holds and shooting off in all directions. We ran through many of these new problems and each of us projected something undone. A fun session for sure.
The Hall Bros. took off and Clint and I went down to the Vestal Boulder so I could once again do the Vestal problem which I always think I haven't done. Not that its forgettable, its actually pretty good. We did the easier problems on the West side as well then played around eliminating holds. Here is Clint getting down on some very small crimps.
Today I managed to sneak away in the morning with my friend Drew who has been in town for a week or so looking for new boulders. He has a break between Spring and Summer term classes. Drew is very intent on finding new stuff, building trails, cleaning and sending anything that looks good. He has focused the last week or so on establishing a quicker way into the Fort Boulder and in the process, found some more boulders leading down to this boulder from above. Pretty cool stuff but kinda dirty. We spent a few hours punching a nice trail through the woods to the new stuff which is adjacent to the Fort Boulder. We'll see what happens with this stuff as there are many newish lines elsewhere on Cedar that have been found and cleaned or not cleaned and are rattling around in my brain right now. Much to do.

I was happy to get home in time to make it to the nursery to buy some tomatoes for the garden. I used compost I bought and some nice organic stuff we've been making in a trash can since last fall. I'll buy some peppers this week and once I get it all planted, the salsa factory should begin producing by mid July. Can't wait!

Tomatoes!!