Wednesday, May 7, 2008

W.R.'s Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise

Another brutal day of climbing, this time at Willow River State Park. Richard, Lisa, Mel and A1 subjected themselves to some incredible climbs. I, myself, would love to wring the neck of the man who first discovered this dreaded amphitheatre and said to himself "I should bolt this"; as bolts lead to temptation, and temptation leads to goals.
Richard felt the siren call of "Daily Grind", and went through hell getting to the top of this impossible climb. Reaching, clinging, pulling, screaming; he is now able to write in his guide book: "Hard climb, but do-able. Next time, red-point."
"White Noise" is where A1 spent the most of his day. Purgatory is a hard pull over the roof of this one. After paying his penalty at the second bolt from the anchors, A1 finally sent this route.
Mel was able to experience why "Jar of flies" is casually called "Jar of Wasps" among us W.R's, and Lisa had a near death experience while saving Richard's life during a fall. Were it not for Lisa, we would all be dead.
And so we have paradise. Paradise is the ride home from Willow, knowing that we have tried our best, achieved some goals, and survived another day. As Richard so eloquently put it "I think one more trip to Willow and this Wisconsin State Park pass will have paid for itself. I don't see any need to go again after that." The next route over is "Sudden Shock" 5.11d. I bet Richard could do that one.

4 comments:

Mike said...

RIGHT ON!
wish i could have ditched work to join you.....

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the summary! Do the snakes belong in the hell section? and what about the spiders?

What a place to visit...and leave.

richard said...

Thanks Aaron. Great post. And Mel-lo, A1 did show me the snake after you guys left. I screamed like a girl.

Lisa said...

Babies, I had a great time. Did I climb anything? We would all be dead if it weren't for Lisa? What do you mean by that? Awesome post Aaron.