A taste of victory, but wasn’t meant to be.
I poured a little energy into Big Z these past two seasons, a very pretty roadside face in South Lake Tahoe established by
@shawnraboutou a few years ago. One of the most technical bits of scaling I’ve tried.
On the surface, it might appear to be all in the fingers, whereas in reality, the legs do a lot of the heavy lifting. Motivation for some leg days in the gym this Summer; something I’ve never considered before. Down low, foot placements and positional strength are key to connecting the dots, with one mistake heavily snowballing to another. However, it’s hard to be accurate when you’re drowning under tension. Up “high”, there’s less tension, but the moves are a lot harder to control, especially if your form starts to drop.
Last Fall, I shared some amazing sessions on it with
@jwebxl (original visionista) and
@keenantakahashi , both of whom are also extremely close with their own sick methods. With the unprecedented amount of rain/snow this year, I only managed to squeeze in a couple of weekends on it this Spring, which was enough to keep me psyched, but left me with some niggles that needed sorting out. Although this was my closest go, it was far from the best bit of climbing I’ve done. I’d had a go a few days prior, where everything flowed perfectly, but I mistimed the drop-in move. It was exactly how I imagined I’d feel on “the go”, but just wasn’t to be. A nice reminder that timing and coordination practice is just as important as strength training.
And so it continues…fuel for the Fall!
#climbing
