Broken Shoulder, Social Scene

Hurricane Igor has kind of put an exclamation point on the ending of the climbing season here on the Avalon.  A strained rotator cuff and the fact that getting on a rope now involves some serious logistics has left me on the low end of the motivation scale.  Already my thoughts are turning to the possibilities next year could hold.  Along those line I have some pictures of some tremendous looking possibilities I discovered recently on a pre-Igor road trip.  My phone is being saucy though and refuses to share with the computer.

Lately I have found myself being much more social in my climbing than ever before.  I can't climb super hard in the short term so I have been enjoying the casual process of sending a few moderate boulder problems with good people.  Much of this enjoyment stems from the latter part of this year's road trip. Once Phil headed back to NL I met up with an amazing crew from LA.  They were psyched on bouldering, I was psyched on not having to troll for partners in the parking lot.  The social experience was even better than the bouldering and this is in-spite of the fact that I had several breakthroughs in terms of my own climbing during this time.

This crew included some of the very best people I have met in a long time.  Everyone was supportive, as psyched to see a friend send as they were to top out their own projects.  When it got hot we climbed at night, headlamps and attention focused on each person in turn as we flailed, yelled, tried hard, and occasionally succeeded, all the while laughing far more than anyone can deserve to.  Days were spent swimming, laughing some more, and taking occasional trips into town for WiFi and copious amounts of organic chocolate milk.

So for the time being I am attempting to rest, heal, and trying hard not to compare the bouldering scene here with what I had out that way.  One of the side benefits of climbing with this particular group was the fact that Jeremy was an incredibly talented photographer specializing in celebrity portraits, and Liz was a really talented photography student.  Liz recently completed a photo album of our time camping and bouldering in the forest.  Check it out.