Spring is here.....for now!

With beautiful weather arriving in Bozeman this weekend, we decided to hang up the skis and get out and climb!  It feels so wonderful to get out and climb in the sun after a winter of shivering on the chairlift.

Jess and I headed out to Natural Bridge on Saturday in hopes of good temperatures.  The sun was out, however it didn't hit the walls for very long making for chilly climbing.  That combined with getting on a couple of 12s that we thought were 10s on the Porcelain Wall didn't make for the best warmups.  We then headed down to the shipwreck wall, which was a little warmer.  I managed to pull off The Black Pearl second try, which was pretty good.  It's a pretty short, bouldery route, which is not my forte.  Maybe all that time bouldering in the gym this winter worked!  I was then able to do The Kraken, which always gives me problems.  Jess gave The Kraken a few good burns and then we headed out.

Jess on The Kraken

Sunday was even more beautiful than Saturday and we decided to head down to the cave at Squaw Creek.  We warmed up on Bonehead  and the 11d to the left, which were pretty fun.  Jess has been trying Subzero for a while now, so I climbed that one to put up a rope.  The goal for today was to try to repeat Kundun, possibly the hardest 12d I've ever done.  The thing is slick and very foot-beta intensive.  Every time I get on the thing, it's like being on it for the first time.  I managed to send it in two tries, which felt really good.  The day was young and I've always thought about potentially trying to climb all four routes on the right side of the cave in a day - Subzero, Kundun, Weapons and Hantavirus, so I decided to go for it. 

The first go on Hanta went pretty well.  I fell off one of the lower moves and then climbed it to the top.  After Jess took a burn on Subzero, I got back on and sent!  That only left Weapons to finish off the wall.  Luckily, I've done that one a bunch, so it went down pretty easily.  I'm pretty psyched with taking this goal down early in the season and now think it would be cool to try and add Of Mice and Men and The Raven to the circuit!

Jess rocking a tanktop in March!

While I was climbing all of these routes, Jess was busy trying Subzero.  This thing is Jess' nemesis.  She tried it a bunch last year and finally moved on.  Now she's back and doing better on it.  The route has two very difficult sequences separated by a good rest.  I think she'll be able to send it this year as long as she is patient enough to keep trying it.

All in all, it was a great weekend of climbing, especially for Montana in March.  Jess and I are jealous of everyone who's on the spring break exodus from Bozeman this week, but we're planning on heading down to Lander next weekend and we've got a trip to Indian Creek coming up in a month.  Climbing season is upon us and I for one am psyched!  We'll still have a few more powder days, and I'm down for that too, but bring on the sunshine!