Alex Puccio Climbs Clear Blue Skies V12

A couple of days ago we returned to Boulder after a 12-day trip out east to Boone, NC and the Red River Gorge. I should have a posting up about our trip soon, but in the meantime here is another little bit of news.

Yesterday, we made a trip out to Mt. Evans so Alex could finish up one of her projects. The parking lot was basically covered in snow, but we decided to trudge in anyways to check on the status of the Dali wall. The hike ended up being not so bad. The snow was well packed and despite some small patches of mud it was quite uneventful. Everything at Area A was dry. Some of the topouts had snow on them. Silverback and All Dogs Go To Evans are most definitely OUT THE GAME. The Dali wall was very dry. Topouts as well. The temps were unbelievably good. Extremely dry and pretty damn cold. Clear Blue Skies took Alex about 4 tries to complete and she absolutely hiked it. One of those sends where every move is executed perfectly. She definitely took it down in style. I will say that this is definitely not the hardest she can climb at this point, and I look forward to watching her progress on the real rocks in Horse Pens 40, Yosemite, Bishop, Little Rock City, and Horseshoe Canyon Ranch.

I'll post some pics of the day, but first here is a little something from Alex in regards to the send:

"The day started off with Carlo saying " we can turn back and go to Clear Creek and I won't be mad" as we started hiking in. It was very cold and windy, and as most of you know I am from Texas, where we Texans like it to be about 80 degrees when we are climbing. =)

But despite the REALLY cold, windy weather, I decided I wanted to go finish Clear Blue Skies. Since I hiked in with the given conditions I made sure I was going to do the problem. So we warmed up on the Ladder a few times and then decided to head right to the Dali boulder and just get it over with so we could leave sooner. As we walked to the Dali I noticed that most of the boulders were iced and snowed over on the tops, I started to get nervous that the Dali boulder was going to be the same. But as we approuched it I was so releaved to see that it was clear!! So we got right on it, and my first two tries I dry fired of the second hold, I got nervous for a minute that it might not go. I went to a rock and sat for a few minutes calmed myself down. Then a huge gust of wind came and I decided to get back on it and just climb the damb thing, and two goes later it just flowed.... I was DONE!!!

The boulder problem took me two days of work. The first day I worked it for about thirty min. and I felt like it was for sure going to go down, but what I thought was my send go I tore my whole pad off of my index finger.

Over all I thought it was soft, and can't believe it used to be v13. And all I have to compair the grade too is the Marble Sit and I definitely thought that Clear Blue Skies was eaiser for me. Which I thought was weird cause I don't ever really climb on crimpy problems, I have never been that great on crimps, but I guess things can change. But I really enjoyed the short victory of Clear Blue Skies......great fun!!! =)