After Ouray I always enter a time-space warp where I do little climbing this is not the first year this has happened so I know nay I welcome this lull. Not that I am depressed or bored sore at the outcome I just pour myself into this event leave it all on the hill as it were I relish the subsequent reprieve.
Still no way can I just lay about waiting for the mood to strike. On the outside chance I might want to send something later in the winter I must maintain if only for sanity's sake.
Enter Le Panel...
For a long time a lame wall of rough plywood occupied the North wall of our gym which sucked, everybody hated and nobody climbed on. A hang-board hung there for eons then the new Power Panel went up which was infinitely preferable for pull-ups then my elbows cried "no more" so pull-ups went out like hair-bands and pink Lycra.
I dreamt of a new wall steep pure smooth hung at a sickening angle then in the week before Ouray I scored at Home Depot screwing and gluing an 8 X 8 monster together that lay dormant on the gym floor like Godzilla in the Japan Sea "Do Not Walk On Panel" said the paper sign I stuck to it to ward-off foot prints a sentiment that was to prove eerily true in the coming weeks.
Back from Ouray I pondered a more pressing how to get the massive panel now glued and screwed in finality up off the floor and into position. Scout and I tussled with it but we could barely move the thing holding it up long enough to fasten into place was out of the question. "Think like a Roman" suggested Sue who knew of my fondness for feats of ancient engineering.
Which I did scooting the monster up onto a stack of bouldering pads before hoisting it into place by way of a Spectra harness affixed through the body of the panel a 10mm rope and Grigri affixed to the wall via an expansion bolt did the trick. We tuned the angle not too intrusive yet still nearly un-climbable the panel had to have rock-steady stability yet not pull the ceiling down so upon the bones of the old sucky panel a new facade emerged...
Le Panel.
I looked at it for days before having the guts to drill there would be no preset grid problems would be conceived of THEN drilled furthermore this would be a bouldering panel an idea that lasted exactly as long as it took me to drive back from Ouray contemplating the virginal dry-tooling potential that awaited once the new panel went up.
So I set a route using the new Atomik holds I had received bouldered it out and hopped onto my suspended tools before cranking out a line a little sore yet from my Ouray exertions but digging the angle you can see all that here:
Lately I have taken to setting dry-tool routes upon Le Panel using a plastic backing that Metolius holds were once upon a time sold on cut to shape so that the beautiful wood isn't chewed to death. The results have been spectacular almost too good after all why go climbing out of doors when you have dry-tooling in your garage?
Never to fear the stainless bolts I gave Scout last year to project with in Rocky Mountain National Park at long last have found there way onto a route so finally after a month of indoor I am going climbing out of doors.
Blessed...
