Taylors Falls - 2/23/2008

Last Saturday Nic, Chris Hirsch, and myself headed out to Taylors hoping to find some climbable rock. Despite their being lots of snow everywhere, we did all manage to get climbing in on the problems we wanted to try. We started at the Left of Lloyds area where Nic was trying the sit start - The Sporting Life. He gave it a few really good burns and managed to slap the final sloper but couldn't quite do it.


After this, Chris went to work cleaning up Sizzlefoot - a 5.12 route that he wanted to boulder and Nic and myself walked over to the cave so I could try my project The Cave Traverse. It was my first time on it since the fall so I forgot my beta on the opening moves on my first go but quickly re-learned it. I didn't manage to send it but feel much stronger on it - my injuries from hueco have been healing much better than I feared and didn't present a problem. I got through the drop move and into the opening moves of the Midget feeling very strong and fell at that point a few times from technical reasons so I know I'm strong enough to do the problem..just have to put it together.

Once I had enough, we all joined up at Sizzlefoot and Chris bouldered the thing! Truly frightening and inspiring to watch all at the same time. This line is usually top-roped and is probably over 25 feet tall with the crux move coming at the top. Chris warmed up by climbing up to the jug at the midway point a few times and jumped down before doing the whole thing. Very nicely done! I wish I'd have gotten video of it but we decided a spotter would be more valuable than video.


After Chris did it, Nic decided to give it a go as well. He took a few long falls from just above the jug in the middle before finally working through the crux and making it to the lip. But he grabbed a wet spot that hadn't been cleaned and blew off the top! Chris and I could only watch and attempt to spot as he fell all the way to the pads... somehow he managed to not get hurt and got right back on the problem. After taking one more pretty long fall from above the jug (at this point I decided I had to take video in case he fell off the top again) that is in the video he sent it too.

Here's some footage Nic edited together from the day:




Pretty nice day considering we didn't know what to expect when we got out there.. Hopefully there will be more days to come very soon.