Bouldering Outdoors

Last night Buddy and Rachael invited us to go bouldering at their secret little location just down the road from where they live.

It's been a while since Jen and I bouldered outdoors - a really long while.

That's a shot from our bouldering heyday back in 2003 (I think) at Haycock Mountain. If you look close you can see Jen carrying our little crash pad that we since sold to Buddy thinking we'd never boulder outdoors again.

Outdoors is (obviously) different then climbing indoors. The rock is dirty, it's sharp and you're scared. You're scared because you don't know what the next move is (moves aren't marked). You don't know how good the next move is and you don't know what you'll fall from. There's a lot of variables to make you think twice, three, four or more times about the next move, then you're tired and fall anyway.

But not Rachael. She's really strong. Besides some tap dancing, pretty confident too.

Jen did well too for completely not liking outdoor climbing and being upside down.

Me? I fell a bunch of times (even got a gasp out of Jen). Got the scrapes to prove it, but figured not picture worthy.

Though Buddy and Jen walking out with the crash pads definitely was picture worthy.

- b