Follow Me Around: West Elden

Finally had a chance to go to West Elden to climb yesterday. What I really enjoy about W. Elden, besides its remoteness from other climbers, is the style of climbing out there. It is one N. Arizona oldest climbing areas with history back into the early 60's! Its also the only type of rock in N. Arizona that truly resembles climbing on granite. Its all glassy and funky. It has a real old school style of climbing and at times can be a little weird/tricky... and a bit scary. Perfect for early season trad!
Because of our heavy snowfall this year its been an impossible area to climb at...I tried a few times to make it out but there was tons of snow at the base of the cliff and everything either had crummy ice hanging off of it or it was soaking wet.
But with our warmer weather recently I rallied some of my eager friends to head on out and see what we could climb around on. Since the road was still closed we hiked the 20 or so minutes we got to the cliff which was in the sun, warm and for the most part free of any ice or water.
After warming up on some of the funky/heady old school classics it was time to head over to a project that I had tried on the day of our first snow storm last Fall. Since I only got one real go before it started snowing I had been dreaming about getting back on it all winter...

Looking up at Andrew on the route.

The climb uses the right arching crack
system through the roof and tops out up by the tree.

So... I thought that all the climbing and leading I did this winter was going to make finishing up this route easy... I was wrong. After climbing through the easy terrain I was quickly reminded again about the funkiness of the area! By time I reached crack in the roof I was already pretty pumped so I fell going for the final hard move. Dang thing is hard! The crack in the roof is a really crappy size and the steepness of the wall is matched by glassy, steep footwork which makes staying on the wall a real challenge. I had to remind myself that falling wasnt such a big deal cause it just as important for me (on certain days) to work on flailing through the air...

Me hangdoggin on my rope looking up at the crux.
Dang thing is so steep and its all slickery rock.

After falling a few more times and getting really pumped now I decided to just lower off my last piece of gear and take a rest... plus its good to let your belayer climb sometimes also.
After hanging out with everyone on the ground for awhile, drinking some water, and eating some "good for you hippie bars" I was pretty psyched to tie back in and give it another go.

Since I had left the gear in up to the crux it made getting up there quick and really quite easy, which helped my psych. Its really great in climbing to have the moments before you do something stand out more than the climb itself. Recently I have tried to maintained a very optimistic approach going into something hard and tell myself that I can do it over and over again. For whatever reason it might be it helps with my climbing and hopefully it will work in all aspects of my life someday.
But... for whatever reason it was...maybe the rest, the water, food, the happy thoughts, or fairy dust...
I topped the route out for the first time without falling which made me very happy. It always makes me feel calm and content when I finally am certain that I can do something. With all of the climbing that I do its still really great to do something when you really dont expect it to happen. In this case it was a happy reminder to me how much I love trying hard while climbing. So much goes into your success on the wall it really quite unexplainable, and very difficult to master.