Well, another year is coming to a close, and I always like hearing about everyone else's exploits, I like the opportunity to think back on the year I had, and also to think about the year to come.


And in case you want to compare your year to what you said you hoped for, here's a link to last year's thread -->http://www.rockclimbing.com/...um.cgi?post=2558979;

GO

How can I post a year-in-review? I'm currently in Las Vegas, I climbed Birdland 2 days ago, and I'm heading to Joshua Tree next week!

Have a trip scheduled to do the Grand Wall and check out the rest of Squamish in June.

I have the Grand Wall in my sights, too. Hoping to keep our biannual Squamish tradition, if funds (and teenager's schedule) allow.

Thanks for starting this thread, Cracklover, ad strong work on Quarter of a Man! These end-of-the-year reports always get me psyched to keep training and climbing more.

My year was productive, but not as good as 2011, which was an unusually good year for me. Still, there were some highpoints, and here they are in chronological order:

(don't read any further if you hate spray and reference to climbing grades. I climb so that I can improve, and the easiest way to chart improvement is by working through grades.)

SPRING:
I tried a more structured, periodized training system beginning in January; hangboarding, campusing, enduro-laps. It helped, I think.

In March, I managed to onsight Replicant, an 11+/12- stemming dihedral at the New which I really had to work for.

My wife and I spent way too much time projecting some steep lines at the Colosseum near the NRG. Although we had some setbacks (mostly shity weather and condensation), we both managed to get our hardest redpoints to date. She sent Apollo Reed for her first 13a, and I sent The Pod for my first (soft) 13b. I also got Apollo wired enough that I could do it on command as a warmup and a cooldown, which was fun. Most important, when my wife sent her prodge, she stripped down to nothing and jumped into the Lake naked in front of like 20 people. Great times.

SUMMER:
I committed to working a guiding job in Southern Utah's Canyon Country, which was really cool, but did not give me a lot of time to climb. The area I was living at (Torrey, UT) was surrounded by amazing Wingate on all sides, and unlike a lot of Wingate, was nice and cool throughout a lot of the summer. Unfortunately, I had a VERY hard time finding partners.

What little climbing I was able to do was really good, though. I originally learned to climb trad on desert redrock splitters, but since I moved East I had not climbed desert redrock splitters for nearly five years. I was not sure how my fitness for pure desert endurance would be, but it turns out that all my sport fitness transferred over to the cracks really well. On one of the few days that I had a partner, I managed to onsight my hardest trad route ever, a shortish 12c tips splitter over a roof. I also did a few FAs, some on solo-TR, and some with partners. Can't wait to get back to that area to do more.

In July, I did my only climbing trip of the summer, up to Tensleep in WY. No great sends, but had a fun time, and managed to finish up onsighting the Shinto Wall, which I had started last year.

Also, in August I scrambled up to Trench Warfare, a 12+ OW in Little Cottonwood, near SLC, UT. Just did a few really weak hangdog runs on it, but it was the first hard offwidth I really have ever tried, and I look forward to getting back on it again in the future.

FALL:
Started off the fall by going back to the RRG, which I had sworn off of last spring after way too many crowds and drama there. Got several 12+'s second go, and built up my fitness pretty consistently.

Did not do too much other trad in the fall, although I did onsight Steve Martin's Face, a very intricate face-trad route at the NRG.

In November, I finally managed to put away Dial 911, a techy, very beta-intensive, and sandbagged 13a at Endless Wall, NRG, which I think is my favorite sport line ever.

Then, the day before Thanksgiving at the RRG, I took a fall on a warmup, pulled one piece of gear, and fractured my foot pretty badly for the worst injury I've ever had. I'm now laid up in a cast with a bunch of pins and screws in my foot. No climbing at all until March at the earliest, and I have no idea how bad of shape I will be in, although I have been making progress on the hangboard and even the benchpress.

So yeah, the year in review: fun sport projecting, some fun FAs and single pitch trad.

What I did not do, that I wish I had: looking back, I realized that I did NO multipitch this year, which I'm bummed about. I also did not travel to a single new climbing area at all. I did a few fun trad lines, but nowhere near enough, and both of the 12+ crack projects that I had went unfulfilled. Next year, I really hope to do less projecting and more exploring.

that's awl.