41174 Represent!

Fed up with sending the same old V9's and V10's the 41174 crew (Dave Kopp & John Palmer) flew down for the weekend to flex their pipes on a few of flock hills classic hard lines.

Me on Condor (V7).

The weekend began by warming up at the bell bouder. We stumbled across a cool little sit start that was put up by some British guy called Pete. We spent some time on the problem before unlocking a workable sequence that allowed John and I to send the V8 (which was pretty soft actually). Next we jumped on the problem 3 meters left of Sunset Arete called Condor (V7). John, Seb and myself quickly sent it, while the Dave thought he'd just jump of the top a bunch and see how big of a crater he could put in the ground. ;-)

Then came the business end of the day - Sunset Arete (V8). This is a super classic line that involves an overhanging prow, some of the best moves you'll ever find, and lots of them. It's a problem that Dave, JP, and I had wanted to do for a along time, but due to the quantity of boulder mats needed, we'd never gotten round to it. Seb slowly dished out the beta as we all got increasingly higher. Half an hour later and...BOOM-SHACKA-LAKA! I got the tick! Quickly in toe, was Seb, Dave, and after a couple of cookie times, JP, giving us the team send on one of the best V8's in the basin.

Sebastian checking out Dave's booty on Sunset Arete (V8)

Not wasting any time JP then methodically moved on to the next climbs on his list and quickly dispatched Cartman (V8) and The Roots (V8). After pottering around on Mobeous (V8) for a while Dave and I headed up to the top of the field to meet up with the others. We then had a play on Porky (V8) which involves a campus to a throw to a runnel. JP unlocked a workable sequence on this which we used to thrash our self with for a while. Just after Seb gave us a demo I used my last layer of skin to top it out. I used to think this problem was rubbish, but now that I've finally done it...it's not so bad. ;-)

The plan on Sunday was to head out and deal to some unfinished business, but despite the warnings from some Japanese boulderers in Springfield we drove all the way to Lake Lyndon in the pouring rain before we did a prompt about turn (with the help of one handbrake) and returned to Christchurch. The only good thing about the ride out there and back is that we were privileged enough to to be entertained by JP's very impressive Mexican gansta impression of Cypress Hill for most of the trip back. Word.