"The Chopin International Piano Competition is every five years and they didn't award gold medalists in 1990 and 1995. Brutal - same way it should be at the Tor."
-- Antonio Labaro
With this in mind, the concensus is to not award a Lord of the Forest this year. Again, as I wrote in my last post, 2016 sucks.
Bad weather ruled this year's Owltoberfest. Mr. Lee's got rained out entirely, so we spent two days at the Owl Tor - which is hard to do even in good conditions. And the conditions were far from good: the first day was rainy, which is often ok at the Tor, but this time many holds were seeping and damp early. Sunday provided better conditions, but by then most of us were pretty beat. For achievements, here are some honorable mentions, sorry if I missed any:
- Dee Lapen giving The Hell of Being Crushed alive 2-3 goes each day
- Micah Elchonin sending his variation that starts on New Shatterhand and finishes on The Power of Eating; dubbed The Power of Dieting (5.12b)
- Chris Loesch trying to redpoint New Shatterhand despite the top being impossible in the rain
- Bob not drinking for 2 full days despite being surrounded by climbers
A few of my favorites...
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| Yuling Huo on Auto-Magic (12a) Photo: Bob |
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| Eric Holstad on The Power of Eating (11d) Photo: Brian |
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| Berndt Zeugswetter on Spearmint Rhino (11d) Photo: Bob |
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| Nuke Photo: Bob |
Enzo Maiorca passed away on November 13th. He was the first person to free dive to 50 meters and is the basis for the character Enzo Molinari in The Big Blue. "Let them try." I have a new line bolted and it will be named in his honor: Combative Grouper: Titanic Struggle.