Here's some photos of Curt and I doing "the world's easiest roof" at Oak Flat in Queen Creek. We climbed for a couple hours but never really got the camera out till the end. I gotta start taking more pictures.
Curt is pretty damn strong, I gotta say - I could barely make it up some of the problems... and didn't even make it up others that he considered "warm ups". Of course my thoughts were "sure, 'warm-ups'" but of course he sailed up them with ease - they really were his warm ups.
I managed one problem that he said was a "real" boulder problem, though I feel a slight "lanking" may have occured. The crux moves are hard pulls from poor holds inbetween jugs, but I just made long reaches and passed all the desperate sections.we messed around on a couple of the classic lines (read: climbs I could actually do). There was one particularly hard problem he jumped on that I couldn't even pull off the ground on. I actually thought he was joking when he pointed out the holds which seemed to be the size of the smallest crimps I've grabbed but cripplingly sloping - just slight irregularities in the rough surface of the rock. Of course after my feeble attempt he cranked right off them, smearing his 10/15 year old shoes on minute holds and made a big slap for a poor sloper. I figured it was time to warm down.
Oh, then we looked for scorpions and stuff. I'm kinda scared about them (I've never seen one so don't know what to expect) but I was pretty sure I wanted to check some out anyways. I didn't see any, though.
The day before I rolled into town Curt and his friend were climbing there and knocked a big chunk of loose rock off a problem, and scorpions were swarming all over the back of it. When it hit the ground and broke apart they were pure crawling about everywhere. I'm pretty sure I would have screamed like a Sungam and run away at that point, but it would have been interesting to see them.
After a day of climbing we went out and had what is basically said the best Mexican meal I've ever had.
I know what a lot of you are thinking - is the IRL Curt same as the rc.knob tinternet Curt? Well, sort of, only instead of the snappy funny remarks being posted an hour later they arrive via the ear about a second later, and instead of being completely demeaning (e.g. in response to Beesty511 saying "jt512 and curt?? lol. Good for the manager. I wouldn't allow the likes of them on my property either." he replied "Good choice. Being in the company of any real climbers would certainly be embarrasing for you.") they are only slightly so, and usually not directed at anyone present. He's also a fair hand at ping-pong.
Oh yeah, about that sunburn - we were in the sun for circa 2.5 hours and I got LOBSTERED, I mean, it was bad. BRIGHT red burn, the chick next to me on the plane to NC seemed more or less disgusted that my arms were peeling all over the place.
