Valentine's Day Massacre : Round 2

After being introduced to VDM and Sandrock the previous week (Round 1 blow-by-blow) , psyche was high and I returned to Centre, AL with Mr. Tommy Calhoun the following weekend. We didn't really discuss the game-plan for the day but it was silently understood that we would be returning to the "Valentine's Day Massacre" at some point in the day to give it a good -GRRRRRRR!!!- and try to send the thang.

More pics to come, but in short TC put it down quickly and I followed suit 2 burns later; however, I did not send without getting a good 'ol fashion scare. Hah.

After successfully pulling thorough the crux moves, you encounter a reachy move out left to a good crack. For me, it was a move requiring a bit of OOMF that's not quite static nor too dynamic...I didn't go dynamic enough. Stalled JUST short of the crack, probably by a couple centimeters as shown in the first picture. My hand was there for a couple seconds as I tried to crank it out that little bit. Alas, I had not teh juice and I went for quite the ride.....



In retrospect, the picture above makes me cringe a bit. Rope-behind-the-leg. AH! Tunnel-vision/pump/desperation i guess, hahaha. Also, I REALLY wasn't planning on skipping the bolt that was by my stomach but I think my bouldering mentality kicked in and I just started gunning. I had also played it out it my head and knew that I could skip it and most likely avoid a ground fall. This conclusion was helped by the fact that TC had my belay so I knew I had a good catch. Sorry bout that Mr. Calhoun. Hah! Well, here's the rest of it....





Living to tell the tale, eh? Haha, the fall wasn't as heinous as it may seem. My leg getting tangled in the rope helped slow down the fall quite a bit and i was able to spot the rock and get my arm out in time. Walked away with very minor injuries. Some rope burn and bruising but I've had much worse. I rested for about 15 min. to depump and ride out the crazy adrenaline-shakes. Snagged the redpoint on the next burn. Yay-er.

Valentine's Day Massacre / 5.13a
4th ascent: TC. 5th ascent: CHL

P.S. - Thanks for the catch Mr. Calhoun! Also, Dabbers get down here sometime and run some laps on this thing!!! It is quite gooood! ++ Pic 1 by Jason Plemmons and fall sequence by Kelly Dalton. w00t!