Hogge's Logbook (242 ascents)

It's hard to grade endurance routes. The opening moves to the rest seem to have a 10a-b consensus, though I heel hook left and it can feel like 5.8 after all the runs I've done. I figure finishing the route is a harder than those starting moves. It has a few big moves that can wear you down, and no great rest. End pump is alot under that of Rock-About (10d); Rock-About probably deserves an 11a.

Header is AP's quote. For grade opinions you MUST try the beta under the route description. That's the move AP is talking about. Birddog originally thought 10c from toprope runs before bolting. Later I forgot that key beta and thought 11b when Karl and I led it. AP and I did it with the beta recently. She thinks 11a. I took liberty of revising the grade to 11a but think it might be 10d, felt easier than Menopause Mania and comparable to T-Roofic Indirect. The low and high moves are awefully technical, but I'm grading on power.

Weird years for me on projecting. Around '07 I came back to the sport and projected the Reimers routes everyone does every weekend--convenient and fun hanging with the gang. I didn't really like the style of those routes that much, other than Unnatural Selection and Lipo. I also projected heavily at Mrock, motivated by it being close to home and my rock. It has alot of routes I never get tired of, all in one spot.

North Shore opened, I got on the bolting bandwagon and projecting became intense and efficient for those FA's. A few years later, the guidebook motivated me to climb routes all around town, but time constraints kept me from projecting routes I didn't manage to send. I lost my projecting chops, but loved researching and writing the book. Once the book came out (March 2012), new areas of NS opened up, but I was much more selective and slow developing new routes, and they were relatively easy. I lost motivation to send anything at my former limit, a year went by and I realize I'd not sent anything above 11b. Nothing wrong with that--we had alot of fun and hit NS alot that year. But I noticed I was more scared than usual on lead, hung alot and rarely took a lead fall. Enough of that, and leading becomes stale and climbing becomes about complaining.

Then I decided it would be fun to master alot of my NS routes, working on repeats and not being such a lead wuss. Since friends end up at Mossy Wall alot, I also decided I wanted to wire the shit out of Mossatopia, the only jug route there, and super fun. So that one route (Dave Phillips') inspired me to finally set a somewhat hard project again and do it. Hopefully I'll begin mastering alot of my routes and set aside the fears of climbing.

Beta spoiler: I set the right kneebar first, shallow in the cave and "sideways," with foot pointing left towards Katrina and knee pointing right towards Ghost. Then swap to a left knee bar, I think in the same spot, to work the hands high for the final crux.

Beta spoiler: one big move is setup by hands close together on pockets; feet up and go. Onsighted past the T-Roofic section.

Britta and I think it might be worth an upgrade to 10b. The route left of it has a comparable hard opening move, but Britta did it static; foot selection might be key to have it not feel harder than 10a. This route has a much harder finish.

DP and I used to think this was easier than the neighboring route (Still Smokin'), grading it the dubious 5.8+. SS is 5.9 on a pretty big set of opinions. I checked notes and DP and I were about the only ones who said ML was 5.8+, with CB saying 5.8+/5.9, JS saying 5.9. Probably due for an upgrade.

Russell found a great extension when I half-bolted a basic uproute. Despite all the similar style variations I designed at Monster Rock, I just sunk the three bolts since I was sinking bolts elsewhere.

The grade might be soft 12a or possibly 11d, but the route it reminds me most of is the 12a Fear Insanity variation at Mrock. This one has a shorter easier approach, more moves through the crux (roughly four), but the moves are easier than Fear Insanity. On the other hand, Fear Insanity is a stout 5.12a, probably harder than Yertle.

I also started right. Editing the description about this.
Easier than Dwarves Rule (10d) but not by much. 10c might be right. Not as easy as Orcs Drool (10a).

Great steep jughaul with a nice headgame over the last bolt. Way harder than Prototype (10c), so I think EQ is low thinking 10c-d. Factoring in the rest, it's a really short route, but the pump builds fast. I was just on Blowing Smoke (11a) and can see this route is comparable.

Patting myself on the back again! Great warmup alternative to A Walk With Kirky.