I gotta say that Horse Pens 40 was an awesome bouldering experience. The style of climbing is pretty specific. I could only climb close to my limit (grade-wise) by finding problems that were outliers from the norm. However, I did manage to climb some classics and some pretty hard (for me) problems too. And, oh man, is this place an awesome bouldering destination sheerly for the convenience factor. 10 minutes off the interstate you get camping literally seconds from the boulders, if you buy firewood it is delivered to your campsite every evening, there are hundreds of boulders and problems all within a five minute walk from one end of the area to the other, and on top of that there are are hot showers for no additional charge! Just fantastic. If it were free I'd never leave.
Ah, well...
Maybe I would have had to leave, I am sure I would have had to go to the hospital after wearing my fingers down to the bone trying to hold onto the wonderfully friction-y sandstone. As it was, in only two days of climbing I was very tender in the tips.
I drove through the rain from the Triangle on Friday (March 7th) and got to HP40 about an hour before dark, in fact it was an hour sooner that I thought I would, although this was only b/c I crossed into the Central Timezone much farther east than I had anticipated. I registered at the Country Store and paid my camping fees of 10 bucks a night for three nights.
So I rolled in on Friday night and set up camp before dark, after immediately running around the boulders scoping out problems and uselessly losing skin fingering holds. After tearing myself away from the rock since I didn't have any time to warm up I managed to fit in dinner before it started raining forcing me into the tent. Well it was cold that night and I woke up to...
Yep, some nasty Alabama Snow.
So I walked around that morning brushing snow off of problems I thought I might want to try later if it got nice out. I thought the day was going to be a total loss, so I went back to bed around 11. I crawled out of my sleeping bag a bit later around 12:30, and I'll be jiggered if all the snow wasn't gone, and the boulders dry.
So I saddled up and hit the boulders for the next day and a half with a few campfire visits in between. There were a lot of friendly folks from all over the east coast and I managed to climb and hang out with a lot of different groups. I mooched spotters and extra pads on some of the problems that were not what I considered safe for me by myself.
It was a great time and I can't wait to go back. There is a problem called Permanent Scream that I needed more skin and a good rest in order to finish, and I didn't have time for that.
I managed to successfully send a bunch of cool problems highlights were, Uniball V3, Bum Boy V4, The Wasp V2, Crisifix V5, Getcha Some V6 and Redneck (softish) V7. This was probably some of the hardest bouldering I have ever done. I was also rejected by a large number of problems that I will have to get stronger to finish. I nearly finished a problem with the awesome name "Never Trust a Mustache" but somehow I failed to reach a good hold even though I thought I was done. I had some interesting falls on that one cause my heel was cammed in a crack holding my foot on the wall while the top part of my body fell away from the wall. I can usually manage to land on my feet, but not with this problem.
Bum Boy is on the left end of this boulder. There is not a lot to hold on to up there.
On Monday morning I shredded the last of my skin, took a shower and busted out of there to visit my friend Ben in Indiana before he took off for Texas. But that is another (brief) post...
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