Tree Lobster In Middle Elden

Last week, before this sudden winter storm rolled through Flagstaff and left almost two feet of snow behind, I went up to Middle Elden with Spencer Church to see how my finger was doing and possibly try Broken Symmetry. The canyon was warm, the sun strong and as I warmed up my desire to give the old Proj a try was quickly dashed. My finger was still not totally better, it was too hot, blah, blah, blah. Boulderers are perhaps the best of all athletes at making excuses.

            Spence’s wrist has been in a cast since the first day of 2012 when he peeled off a wet hold on a problem in Priest Draw. Rocks: don’t even try to climb them if there’s water seeping down the face, bad things tend to happen. So, with that days dream as no more, I decided we would trudge up-canyon to a problem I’d found in my wanderings about three weeks ago. Spence, happy to be away from the couch and cable, agreed to walk up there and take pictures.

Gaston

            This problem is about 15 minutes past Entering Betsy way up on the west side of the canyon. It climbs a tall, orange face on some of the best rock I’ve seen anywhere on Elden. Days ago I walked up there with a few tools and cleared the landing. I’ve been thinking of climbing it since.

The First Move

High Step

            After pushing our way through the Gambel Oak and Mountain Mahogany Spence set up on a boulder over-looking the problem, the canyon, and all of Flagstaff. He opened a beer and got out his camera and I opened up my crashpad and put on my shoes.  The first move, a long throw to a good pinch, is the hardest move on the problem, so after I’d tried it a couple of times I started working the problem from the good pinch. After trying a few different variations, I found a double gaston and balanced high-step to work the best. After maybe ten or twelve more tries on the hard first move I sent the problem in it’s entirety on what I’d just told Spence would be my last try.

            The only other people we saw in the canyon that day were almost certainly looking for Bigfoot. We heard one of them say, “this is great Squatch country,” and they were howling like animals, which is not really peculiar behavior for Middle Elden at all. But it’s a small world, I guess, and everyone wants to find Bigfoot.

 With Cryptozoology in mind, I named the problem I climbed that day Tree Lobster, after this crazy hand-sized insect thought to be extinct for something like 80 years that was recently found on a remote island off the coast of Australia that looks like an illustration from a Hardy Boys book. After going to The Glorias and climbing Cross-Eyed Nurse, Flyswatter, and Tombstone, I think Tree Lobster is somewhere in the V8 range, but who knows. Once all this snow melts I’m going to take Matt and Danny up there to see what they think.

            The snow is falling again, and now with that quiet urgency of a true storm. I think I might go blow up the tube, or at least make something hot to drink.

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