Hueco #3

Well, it's over again and I am back in Austria as I write this. The last days of our trip have been really epic, lot's of bouldering here and there, snowstorms and icy temps at night... it's all there! Good times for sure.

The climbing days went past really fast and everybody of our crew had sort of a cold once at least so before we knew it the last two climbing days were on the schedule. Day number one was supposed to be our last day climbing on North Mountain. Time to get things done there. For me that ment to get on "Bleeding Brothers", a stiff V12 that climbs out of a cave. The climbing is desperate. Big ass moves, crazy toehooks and heelhooks and compression... Working on the problem on two sessions before it was fun to solve my own beta puzzle and try to link the sequences, wich is the hardest to do on this climb because on the link you have to hold a really slopy bad pocket for your right hand three moves in a row. Each move individually isn't too bad but when you ad them together... you better make sure you hit that hold hard!
I warmed up and felt good. First try I fell two moves before the end. Minutes later I got shut down on the very last hard move because that slopy right hand popped out in the last moment!! Damn! Not only I got super close I also sliced my left hand on the big undercling Hueco that try, blood everywhere... I got real pissed. And that for sure helped in this case. I taped the flapper as good as I could, rested and got really really psyched to take my revenge. I pulled on and forced my way out of the cave very confident and fast. Arriving at the last two crux moves this time I felt positioned well and was perfectly set up. My left hand went for the crimp on the lip, both the toehook and the heelhook stayed and I bounced again lefthand for the lip, stuck it and topped out. What a relief! It's one of those blocs that make this place really unique for me, the climbing is just so crazy!!

The next day was our last and we decided to go to West Mountain because we hadn't been there before and just wanted to climb a lot on boulders that are new to us. We had a nice crew, Me, Ingo, Ida and J-Fred from Norway, Joe and two spanish climbers, Kevin was our guide. We warmed up on some really good easy climbs and then went over to Best of the West V7, one of Hueco's most famous blocs. It really was what everyone promised it to be: fantastic. Crazy holds, big moves... perfect!
After that I set eyes on another mega classic: The Feather V11. I first saw a picture of this bloc in some french climbing mag when I was a kid and since then wanted to climb on it. As I was pretty low on energy resulting from 4 weeks of bouldering and sleeping in the cold I had to act a bit tactically in order to succeed. I started to try the upper part wich is a bit tricky with a brutal knee bar and a lot of possibilities for you feet. The start just looked physical and I thought I'd have the right motivation to do it once I solved the upper part. Wich happened pretty soon, I found my way to do the kneebar section, rested and sat down at the start. Kevin gave me some beta for the start and I pulled of the floor. You have to do a hard gaston move out of your left hand to get into the stand start and surprisingly I did that one right away! I hussled a bit after it because I didn't know how to walk my feet into the kneebar but kept it together and climbed to the top, realizing a bit of a childhood dream, unexpected, on the final day of our trip... I was more than happy!
Not enough yet we went back down and over to Best of the Best V9. It's a long climb (about 20 moves) and after I found my beta for the crux sequence I somehow ran through it, totally pumped, with my arms cramping on the last V2 moves and the mantle... Time to go home!

Looking back we had and amazing time with many many nice people and friends we made and we can't wait to return some day, hopefully soon!

Check out all the galleries for Fotos of our trip!! We also filmed pretty much everything on HD so stay tuned for some clips soon!!!

take care,

Emi