21 Nov 2012

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21 Nov 2012
Been hanging out at the Hangdog campground and trying to find people to climb with. Yesterday I got a late start to the day but was able to climb with a couple of guys from the UK, a German girl, and an Aussie guy that is a little strange, but he is a pretty nice guy and has a mess of dreaded hair. We climbed a couple of 18s/5.9, one that went up this nice little hand crack which is kind of different compared to the rest of the climbing here in Payne's Ford. Relaxed there for a little bit and watched the guys from the UK get on a 24/5.11ish. It was fun to watch them and chat about the route with them. After that I went off on my own to do some bouldering so the UK guys could have more time to climb on their rope. I ended up finding a cool little boulder problem right on the river bank. I ended up kind of developing it, but I'm sure someone else has tried it at some point but there were no chalk marks. I was not able to finish it because the second to last move is pretty big and I did not really have a spotter, but I did have a pad so that was good. I did a get on a few other problems but was not able to finish any of them, but it was still fun to get on them and get my arms pumped. I ended up heading back to camp and then into town to grab a couple of things at the store. For dinner I made a quasadilla with fried green pepper and onion. The kicker is that I made it on my Pocket Rocket camp stove. I ended up needing to trim off a little bit of the tortilla before it would fit into my pan. While eating dinner I ended up chatting with this guy from NZ. He ended up wanting to get on a few climbs right them and I said I was up for it. We quickly grabbed our gear and heading off to the crag with only about 2 hours to climb. We were able to get on a few really cool routes and climbed right till the sun went down. It was so much fun and really great to get on some new and fun routes. It was also entertaining to talk with Ivor. He is an alpine guide most of the time and does some downhill mountain biking as well. For a 40 year old guy he is pretty fit. I also climbed with him this morning and got on a few more great routes. He was like my own private guide, he knows Payne's Ford like the back of his hand. He knew all the great routes in the two areas that we climbed. I am excited to head back to the same routes and trying again. After we for done climbing he gave me a ride into town so I could get on the Internet. The past few nights I have sat around the campfire with a group of people chatting and listening to a couple of people playing the guitar. One guy that was playing is from Uruguay and he knew a couple of songs in English but he played a couple of great songs in Spanish, one of which was his own. The song he sang and played in Spanish were absolutely beautiful.

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