So, after a week off with a bad neck today it was time to get back at it.

The past few trips to St. George I have been trying a problem called "Moustache du prophete" 7a+. The problem is pretty simple. Sit start with a juggy undercling, stand up to set up your left hand in a bad mono, then a big move to a sloper with your right hand. I suspect that for most people this big move involves just standing up and pulling through on the mono. But whenever I tried the problem I felt like my finger was going to explode and quickly wrote the problem off as not-for-me.

Then one day I went back to try it again and tried jumping to the sloper instead, this avoids alot of the strain on the mono finger. I managed to slap the sloper and thought it might be possible. I tried jumping from the ground with my finger in the mono and managed to stick the sloper in a few tries.

Sticking it when doing the actual problem was another story. The wall is deceptively steep so your feet are quite a ways in front of the top of your body, so to stick the sloper you need to not only hit it in the right spot, but also keep from swinging off.

Last day I tried it I managed to come close to holding the swing, but had to try it so many times that I ripped 3 separate flappers off my right hand in the process and so couldn't finish it. Today I was hoping to finish it off quickly after a week of rest and skin regeneration.

After a thorough warm up I got on it. I was quickly dismayed to see I was not even as close as the previous session to sticking the sloper. So I kept at it but was slow to make any progress, eventually I started to feel like I was slowing myself down slightly on the sloper, but still felt far from holding it when I re-opened one of the flappers.

I decided to give it one more go and just try to hold the swing for as long as I could. I shocked myself by sticking the sloper and realized I still had a few more moves to finish the problem. I had tried the top moves before from a jump from the ground and they are no gimme. I nearly swung off at one point but barely managed to snag the next hold and then grab the finish jug.

It goes to show how arbitrary grades can feel that this gets 7a+ and took me more effort than any problem I've done in a long time, while at the same crag I've done 3 other 7a+ and one of them was a flash. This felt like one of the hardest single moves I have ever done. Maybe I am just bad at mono's I guess?

Here is a little video of the climb. The quality is pretty bad because it was filmed by my phone propped up on a log on the ground.

Moustache du Prophete from Dave Stack on Vimeo.