261 miles and running

And I'm not talking about my favorite Wale mixed tape song.  I've figured out that if I've climbed around 14.5 days a month for this '08 RMNP season so far, beginning the first week of June.  Now we are a week in to October, so than that would be about 4 months.  Then if you multiply that 14.5 days times 4 months you will get 58 days, which is a good estimate of how many days I've spent hiking up to the park.  Now for every trip to the park (lower or upper) I'll give a conservative estimate of 4.5 miles round trip.  That will give a total of 261 miles and counting that I've hiked this park season.  Not bad for someone who hates hiking.  I guess the rewards out weigh monotony.

Yesterday I headed up, again, to the park with some friends.  It was an amazing day clear, windy, and cool.  I hung out watching some sports action at the green 45 (nice work Mike.) Then around 4:30 I headed down to Freaks of the Industry.  I spent a bunch of days last month working it and came close twice.  Freaks is a power endurance problem that is around 20 moves of pure hell.  Each move couldn't be harder than v7 but one after another, after another has left me making slow progress.  Every high point for me has been getting to a move sooooo pumped that I can still hang on the the rock but can even think of moving.  I'm sure people out there can identify with that feeling.  After getting to that point twice on Freaks I took some time off it to climb on some other stuff.  Well now I finished off the other stuff and its back to Freaks.

So after three burns I got really close, but again to that point of not being able to do another move but still hanging on to the rock.  Here is a picture of my new high point and those that know this climb can agree that it's a real heart breaker of a move.  I'm sure I'll finish it up soon my only worry is the snow will shut me out.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.