Our first two days climbing in Arkansas were blessed with perfect conditions — clear skies, cold with a slight northerly breeze. I was on a mission to check out all the climbs that were featured in the Sharma in the Ozarks Dose. But before that, I had to check out Arkansas’ hardest established sport route, “The Prophet” rated 5.14a (probably by someone other than Chris), which was a five-minute hike from where we were camped. I sent the route on my 3rd attempt and decided it was probably closer to 13+, but it was still a fun route. The next day we took a day trip out to a trad/sport/bouldering area called Sam’s Throne. My mission was to climb on the “King Lion,” a boulder I had been dreaming of climbing on since I first saw it in Dosage 3. I had little expectations of how it was going to go because it just looked so hard in the video, and even after a few attempts, it felt like something that would take me days to redpoint. All it took was a little fingering out though, and after about an hour, I found a way to do the seemingly impossible iron-cross move keeping my feet on and a few tries later, sent the rig. It turned out to be one of the coolest boulder problems I have ever done, so I was very thankful we didn’t wait to go to it, because it got super hot and humid on our next climbing day. 

We spent the rest of our stay in and around the ranch hanging with the hospitable locals, shredding our skin to death in the heat and humidity, and watching the farm animals roam. I did get to see all the climbs that were in the dose, even Witness the Fitness, which is the raddest looking climb ever, but I didn’t actually climb on it due to the condition of the skin on my fingertips and the temperature of the air.