Castle Hill Trip

So, after spending the last eight days in castle hill I can say that I feel like I have been through ten rounds with Mike Tyson, minus the ear biting. Of the eight days I had a solid two days of rain which totally sucked ass, but I was left with six amazing days of climbing. My first focus was to complete many quality problems that i had previously over looked, such as: The air below (V6), Beautiful Edges (V4), Tupi Master (V6), Lime stone Orgasm (V7), Philtrum (V7) and many more boulders V6 and under.

My second focus of the trip was to send some problems that were not my limit but were hard for me; amazingly I actually managed to tick a few of these off: Fidel Castro ( V9), Dr Manhattan (V9), Afterburner (V9)?, Eclipse (V9) although I believe i started a hold in on this one?, Millennium (V9)?, Camp America (V9/10), and finally the super long Che Guerva (V8).

My final focus was to attempt to send something really hard for me, and I found two project that I attempted Interstellar overdrive ( v10/11), and Oren Oshi (v11). Oren was the first of the two I tried. Very quickly I had fired the crux bottom section and was high up on the mantle. Sadly three times I fell off the mantle and finally my spotter ( Amy Nathan) said enough was enough and we needed more than one pad. I never got the chance to return to the problem and thus could not claim the 3rd ascent, Lame.
Interstellar came next and i felt confident as I had tried the route about a year earlier. I quickly found a great sequence and was grabbing the jugish hold at the end of the problem. My only issue on interstellar, which was my ultimate down fall, was that I was super extended when I grabbed the last hold.
It turns out I was so extended on the final moves, my feet would not stop slipping of the heal hooks causing me to swing violently. Over a three hour period, until the sun went down, I managed to fall at this point several time cursing flock hill, god, and anything else I could think of at the time. I ended up packing up felling down and defeated and didn't get to try the problem again, LAME!

Beside the problems I have listed as my projects I also tried several other hard lines, they were as follows: Captain Crush ( V10/11), Monster Society of Evil ( V9/10), When animal attack (V10), and Brutus ( V10). I can tell you all that these problems kick the shit out of me... and I had to walk away with my tail between my legs on all of them! I also tried several V7 mantles at spittle hill and got cock slapped by all of them.

I can also report that Amy had an amazing week also. She climb several days less than I did but still managed to complete a personal best of V6 at Spittle Hill. However that was not the full story... as Amy also managed in one day two V4s, a V5 and her V6... She was super stoked, it was her best bouldering haul in a day ever!

All in all my trip was cool, short but cool. I have to thank Bevan Hadler and Kat for letting Amy and I crash on there couch for the week, and for lending us the car!!! wicked one guys!

I would say though, I think that the CHCH locals, and flock and Wuthering locals should stop grading their problems anything but V6. Basically this is because they seem to continue to down grade every problem that is ever put up for no good reason. I say just grade everything V6 straight away rather than slowly sand bag the shit out of everything.

anyways thanks Flock, Spittle, and Wuthering... you were great
peace!