Crashpad needed!
Cova, Mau and I spent most of the afternoon focusing our effort into a very hard/dangerous boulder problem that we proposed last week in Chiluca.
It consists of a very-long-reach-left-hand-layback move to a small finger pinch in an exposed traverse. In order to keep body balance, your right foot must stay on the opposite side to the finger pinch, virtually holding most of your body weight on a heel/toe hook/jam. Once you’ve placed your feet and stretched to grab every possible feature on the “very far” 3 fingertip pinch, you must “confidently” release your right hand and dyno to a good handhold that is above the pinch.
I can easily rate this problem into the infamous X category by quoting Yosemite Valley’s Selected Bouldering Guide:
Increased severe injury and/or death potential executing the crux.
The boulder problem isn’t far from the ground, in fact, it’s so close to it that if you fall while executing this awkward move, you won’t have the time to protect yourself from smashing your head against the rocky floor. Picture this: your right foot is jammed up on a ledge… your left foot is dangling elsewhere without helping you… your body is almost upside down… and your chance of success relies on your left hand’s finger strength while dynoing your right hand to the good handhold!
After many tries, Cova could manage to send the problem with some “real fear” and with us spotting on the floor below him; but me being spotted by 2 small and thin guys like Mau and Cova is a whole different story… I almost sent the problem, but I fell very close to grab the good handhold (in fact, I touched it!). Miraculously, Mau could protect my face from being crushed against the hard floor. We definitely need a crashpad to work this new, crazy and interesting boulder problems…
