Where I'm at with SoCo

In the fall of 2017, I began to put some efforts into Southern Comfort. I was getting out with my good friend Chris, who was raging through some other concave lines with some quickness. The thing to know about Chris and I is that when we climb together, there is one thing that matters more than anything - how hard are you trying?

And so never mind that there were still a few lines in the cave I hadn't sent. With psych buzzing on both ends of the rope, I was beginning my process on this incredible line. By the end of the season in the fall, I had one MAJOR breakthrough: a one-hang on Southern Comfort Right.

Moving through the 3rd boulder problem on a RP attempt.

The route is a bit of an anomaly. It's sits in a large canyon characterized by bouldery routes separated by rests, with the stereotype being cruxy edges or powerful moves on big flat holds. The concave, which is the crag within the canyon that SoCo is situated in, is characterized by steep climbing with bouldery cruxes between rests. Think jugs, heel-toes, and unfortunately, glue. This place is Alabama's outdoor gym.

Southern Comfort, however, is different from anything else in the canyon. As far as I've experienced, it is different from anything else in the region. Besides the opening boulder problem which climbs through some chossy reinforced crimp flakes, the route climbs perfects stone with insanely creative boulder problem cruxes, most of which are climbed in a resistance-style (no rest).

Here is my breakdown of the route:

• v6 to a good kneebar rest
• long v6 to a bad shake
• v4
• powerful v5 exit

None of these are difficult in isolation, but they are very strenuous to link. Interestingly, when I fall on my redpoint attempts, I no longer feel very pumped, but I feel powered down. This is a problem because the last 3 moves are the most powerful moves on the route. 

3rd to last move, a snap of my current highpoint (I fell here)

When I would one-hang it, I would usually do so by going from the ground to the bad shake after the second v6, and then from there to the top. I was convinced the redpoint would boil down to finding a better body position to recover here. After a lot of unsuccessful effort trying to make this stance feel more comfortable, I realized I needed a different solution to make progress.

I knew the second boulder problem was the most taxing on the route. Though not particularly hard, it requires a lot of tension and a lot of weight on the arms. Thus, it's hard to breathe well through these moves and it also saps a lot of power. So I sacrificed a session of working the route as a whole so that I could instead dial in this second boulder. I wanted to know exactly which moves required tension, and which ones I could breathe through. I did the boulder four times in a row, at first focusing on breathing through every move possible. Once I understood which moves I can breathe through, I started to focus on speed - how quickly can I climb through this part to minimize the energy toll.

The second and most taxing boulder problem.

The last thing I worked out in this session was the bad shake following the boulder. While a right heel felt most solid to clip the draw, I decided it was worth adding a move back down to switch the right heel to a toe jam in the hueco, and a left toe pressing on the lowest hueco. From subsequent sessions, I have also learned it is more important for my right arm to be recovered than my left, so I make sure I shake this side last before moving on.

The bad shake after the second boulder.

With all of these subtleties understood, I began pushing for bigger links. I originally thought once I could link from the kneebar rest to the top, I would be close to doing the route. Now I feel as though that is equivalent to doing the route. I have gotten to the same move from the ground as I have off of a hang at the kneebar. Thus, I am in redpoint mode. I climb the opening v6 to the ledge as fast as I can, and I sink into the kneebar rest and relax until I am ready. From here, there are 3 things I tell myself to remember: breathing, speed, and confidence. 

On my second-to-last session, I was fresh from a rest day and was making really good burns from the ground. I made it to the last bolt twice, but each time I was too sapped to clip off of this juggy undercling. On my last session, I was 3 days on and not feeling strong. I began making a big move left to a good slopey hole to clip. With this slight change, I was able to clip the last bolt from the ground twice in  a row, which was HUGELY encouraging because I knew I could come back after a rest day with this change in beta and my odds would be good.

Going one extra move to get in a better clipping stance. I clipped then fell making the big cross to the crimp on the right.

So now I'm resting more than I am training this week, hoping to arrive fresh and confident for battle on the rig this weekend. We'll see!

All photos by John Heidbreder.