My friend Dave and I did a quick day-trip to North Conway, NH on July 4, before the rain was supposed to come in the mid-afternoon. Although our original objective needed to be set aside due to a slow party ahead of us and a very wet route, we managed to find a lot of good stuff to do, even if they were only 1-3 pitches long. I can’t say I truly love New England, but I suppose the place grows on you a little bit. The slick, moist rock, often seeping and sections of unprotected, mossy slab (three words I do not like to hear together), interrupted by some cool cracks in North Conway, is certainly very different to the bone-dry, friction-y rock of the Sierras. Feels harder.

It was great to feel comfortable on 10’s cracks again although, for me, it is highly dependent on how good the pro is. We knocked off a couple of really cool finger cracks, which used to be one of my fortes. I have to hang off my fingers/hands a lot, which makes things a bit spicy at times, but it was awesome to feel more confident on stuff like that again.

Warm-up lead on Raising the Roof, a surprisingly fun 5.9. The gentle arc of the rope is a metaphor for the gentle beauty of New England.

I had to be a bit careful because of my broken PIP joints in both fingers, but the finger cracks were too seductive to resist.

Currently I am on the home-stretch for training for the upcoming US Paraclimbing Nationals on July 17. I was knocked out a bit last week due to a low-grade illness, and am walking the fine line between training hard and feeling my body break-down/on the cusp of injury. In the past, I have just very quickly transgressed into injury territory and then it is pretty much game-over misery; so this state I am in feels quite strange. I don’t feel very strong, again because I am bordering on body breaking down; but I think after resting for a few days, I might be roaring again. My goal is to not only win my category (Neurological and Physical Disability/SCI), but to be the top female, again, across all categories by points. I am trying not to set myself up for disappointment; and I do feel somewhat ambivalent about these comps because they are also a function of how much function a person has versus how good a climber they are; but, I think it is a goal I will stick to. I am pretty sure I am the strongest female, in terms of upper-body strength. It seems like there are a lot of new people, so it will be interesting to meet a bunch of these folks.