Day 6

Ok, so internet connections were tenuous in Montreal and as a result we are a few days behind in the blogging. Sorry to keep y'all waiting.

The last entry left off with plans for supper, wine and sleep, which turned into a lot more wine and a lot less sleep than I had expected. I blame our hosts...

Kendra and Dillon 2/3 hosts

Despite the lack of sleep we still got up early to head out for the boulders, accompanied by our  gracious and gorgeous host Kate (not pictured above).

"Bright eyed and bushy tailed?"

We had a super awesome day bouldering and hanging out at Val-David which is about an hour north of montreal. There are a ton of really classic problems there. Unfortunately our camera battery died very early in the day.

One of the first problems we got on was "La Prue" which is the prow in french... i think...

We both got shut down by it's weird sequence, until on the way out we got beta (advice on how to climb the problem) from some locals who were trying it. Then we both sent it with the better sequence.

Luke on the tricky V4 "La Prue"

Next I worked on a really nice v6 sloper traverse with a local guy name Raphael. I should have finished it  but blew it on the last easy move....twice.

"La Traversee de L'Orque" V6

We did a bunch of other problems we didn't get pictures of due to the battery dying. Luke really is getting strong fast and sent another v4 quickly. I'm looking forward to seeing him send in squamish. I worked a really cool V8 arete for a little while and felt like I could get it but didn't want to concentrate my efforts too much on one problem...that and the guys i was working it with moved their pads away.... and I am a bag of excuses...

One of the last problems I did was a cool v6 that went straight up a face through some big moves on perfect crimps. My finger tips were totally raw and my arms were cooked by the time I started working on it.  I managed to do all the moves separately but just didn't have the juice left to link it together. I was giving up when a couple other people came to try the same problem. I decided to give it one last go and managed to finish it, mainly due to one of the guys reminding me to breathe halfway up the problem.

Raphael on "Louise Classique" V6

Then Luke, katie and I hiked to the top of the cliff the boulders are at the base of to enjoy the view before heading back into town.

"Enjoying the View"

We then headed back to montreal (with a stop for gelato along the way).  Our climbing adventure was followed by a chicken finding and cooking adventure and then more partying. None of which was documented due to the aforementioned battery issues, but that is probably for the best.