Confidance & Trad with an after shot of a new goal.

Plain and simple...you need it. The two go together like Lamb and Tuna fish. I have never though of myself having large amounts of self confidence until the last few months. In life trusting yourself and your abilities (and your gear and partner(s) in the case of climbing) is crucial. This has started to set in over me the last couple of weeks and has most likely been building over the last year. Confidence is something that I actually enjoy having. I have gone my life not really having any (this is according to folks close to me), now that I do and it's never going to change. Someone told me recently... "How we view ourselves changes the way we view the world." (Thanks T) I would like to add to that statement by adding "and how the world around us views us".

This last weekend I headed up to Devil's Lake with Brian, and I managed to get in 4 good leads. Three of the climbs were more of a "huh...that looks fun...". Two of these climbs where rather "run out" in spots. I had one of these leads and Brian the other. During the run out sections, I think I only had the option of a 50 year old steel pin (which yes...I did use...) backed up (closely) by a "so-so" #4 nut. (Brianlater informed me he saw a place in the area of the old pin that could have took a for a solid cam placement) Lucky I was able to get in a good .75 Camalot about 4 feet above those. Brian ended up using a Wild Country "Zero" (small cam) on the run out of the climb he did.

The hardest climb of the day was the "Berkley Crack". A "Devil's Lake 5.6", which means...a 5.6 climb with a 5.8 Crux. The climbs sequence of moves is, up for about 15-20 feet, 10 foot traverse (right), up for another 10 or so feet and another 10 traverse (right) at this point you are at the crux, a lovely 5.8 reach to a rather nice jug. However, I couldn't quite get at the hold (which later I accepted that poor feet placement caused this) I fired in 2 cams right on top of each other. "TAKE"! Brian took in all the slack and ended up resting on a .4 Camalot. After I got back on the route, and repositioned my feet, the crux move (while still reachy) was easily doable. After the crux the climb becomes this small chimney type thing and tops out.

Side note from the weekend:
Over the weekend I reached a new low with my weight. I don't think I have actually posted what I weight now. In previous blog posts I said my goal was 218lbs. However, after this weekend and reaching a new low of 215lbs I have decided to make my new goal 199 by the end of the year.