Ethan Pringle - Pro Blog 9

Since there was no way Mark and Ben were bouldering that day, I decided to have a go at the dry sections of the climb, so after doing a few pull-ups and a V0-minus lip traverse, I suited up and was ready. Sean Mcoll had told me — or better yet warned me — that the beginning slab was “really hard” and Sonnie Trotter said in an e-mail that I should brush up on my slab technique before heading up. Both turned out to be proper assessments of the difficulty of the slab and there were a couple moves that left me whimpering. I was able to do all the moves of the upper crux and the beginning rail traverse on my first tries, but that slab, man... I decided to have another go on it and split the tip of my index finger — something I have never done in my life (which I attribute to the humidity) — and was done for the day. As we walked out of the forest, the rain stopped and I ended up leaving my hat and my nice new fleece lined sweater in the parking lot. I ended up finding the hat later but the sweater was too good for someone to just let lie there, it needed a home and a torso to fit around and someone was happy to give it that. So the trip was not off to the best start... 

We probably saw actual sunlight a total of about 20 minutes the first three days we were in Squamish. I healed my split finger and watched my buddies boulder, as things started to dry up a little. I picked up the fourth member of the group, Carlos “Hot Carl” Mason who came out to take some footage of me flailing on my project and do some bouldering. We made it a ritual of going to the local rec. center to play in the pool and take advantage of the sauna, hot tub, and showers. It was pretty much the highlight of most of my days, especially if it was a wet day. 

After two rainless days, Dream Catcher was almost completely dry, except for a mail slot you have to dead point at the start of the last crux. The not-so-humid day made me realize how bad the conditions really were before. There was still a section on the slab that felt inpossible, and I realized the only way to really know if I was trying the right beta was to bust out some new-school tricks. I brought my laptop up to the room where the climb is and set it on the boulder directly in front of the slab so the screen framed the lower part of the climb. Then I proceeded to re-watch the Dose in Dosage Four of Chris doing the first ascent, specifically the portion where he climbs the slab (about 25 times) to make sure I knew exactly where he was putting his hands and feet. I’m sure many of you will scoff at this, but I’m telling you that it worked! I realized I was trying the section I was stuck on a different way than the way Chris did, and as soon as I used his beta I linked it — except for the double dyno, there's a much easier way around that business. So with the slab figured out, all I needed to do was link the entire rest of the climb. Piece of cake. Maybe not so much. 

I was definitely getting higher on every attempt but the highest I was able to get from the ground was two moves past the wet hold that marked the start of the last crux. I’m pretty confident I could've done the route, with a week or two longer, without rain, but I needed to hurry home to prepare for my next trip, and it looked like the rain was going to start back up again. No matter, I will be back soon enough to send the rig, hopefully. It was a fun trip despite my lack of success. 

The rest of the crew sent lots of boulders, especially Mark who did his first V10, Worm World Cave (low), which he sent in the sun after he split his tip on it, our last day there. After that is was psyche overload from Mark and we couldn’t get him to shut up, even for half an hour in the car. It's okay, we were talking about food, wadayagonnado? Ben and I also hiked up to the top of the Chief for the breathtaking view, and around back to catch a glimpse of the most badass looking crack in the world. I did however have to drive about 16 of the 19 hours back home, though, which was terribly exhausting. I would also like to thank Sean's mom for the most amazing dinner I have ever eaten. 

Now I’m back home again, maxing and relaxing. Actually I’m waking up at 5 a.m. tomorrow to go surfing, but I will surely feel relaxed after that. I will also include a picture of the three kittens Natasha is fostering for the shelter. The lighter one is "Ghost Face Killa," the darker one is "Capadona," and the other dark one that is always sick and throwing up and crapping on the floor is "ODB" (aka "Old Dirty Bastard"). 

This may be my last blog for a while folks, as I'm traveling to France, and I am not sure about the motivation to write blogs, let alone computer/internet access I will have over there. I will mostly be climbing in Ceüse; there is this one route I have wanted to get on there. It’s a pretty nice line. Not making any promises though. 

I would also like to apologize to my mom who says I should take the time to carefully edit these blogs down to perfection, since it will be heavily scrutinized under the critical eye of the climbing community and the folks at Climbing magazine (who will probably be cursing me for making them edit this, for the misspellings, grammatical errors, and punctuation mistakes, and, of course, run-on sentences, in this blog (and pretty much all of them). Like Dream Catcher, I didn’t give myself all the time in the world to work on it. And against the wishes of — well, mostly my mom — I’m sending it in to be posted. 

Well folks, I’m off on another adventure. Wish me luck.