Took our first trip out to Hueco this year on Friday. The weather was beautiful on Saturday and there was NO ONE in the park. We pretty much had the place all to ourselves the first part of the day. Made some good progress on one of my projects that I started – Roughage, a V7. It’s a super stiff problem until you get to a huge hueco that’s near the top. Then it’s just mind over matter since the fall is rather disastrous –  an uneven boulder that’s hard to spot and if you don’t stop there, you’ll be rolling into a tree and then finally resting in some dirt far below. I figure if I put in some good training in the next two weeks, it can go on our last trip at the end of March. We’ll see…I’m pretty determined about it.

Tommy didn’t fare so well – on Saturday evening while working on another project of ours, Deans Journey, he heard a loud POP! from his middle finger and immediately came off. He knew right away it was bad and it was confirmed today  – his finger is swollen like a cucumber and is all black and blue. It doesn’t bode well for any climbing in the immediate future. It’s good that our season is pretty much ending at the beginning of April since we have to start training for the Mudder up in VT. However, we also wanted to do some climbing while we were up there, but I’m sure it will heal in time for July. It’s just unfortunate…especially since we were making a really good comeback after taking time off for Will. We’ll see what happens. We bailed early this morning because of Tom’s finger and because the weather was awful. Lots of wind and dust. We were sure they were going to close down the highway from the mess we saw…but they didn’t and we made it home in one piece. If we end up going again in 2 weeks, we’ll let you know how we do.