Monkeys in the Coop

I'm sitting waiting to board the plane in the airport and so in my effort to write more this year I thought I'd force out some crap just for the sake of upholding my promise to myself.   

I've been staying with Holden in Vancouver the last two days in his little apartment. We went to the UBC "climbing gym" AKA "The Coop". He tells me to wait outside and walks in and hands his card to the lady at the desk. Five minutes later he's back out again and I meet him in the washroom. He slips me his gym card and I walked in the with confidence holding his gym card. She didn't bat an eye at the fact that there were two very different looking Holdens entering the gym within ten minutes of one-another. I felt stupid at my racing heart but I played it cool. We laughed later when Holden admitted he was nervous too. We would've looked like such punters getting caught sneaking me into the "climbing gym" for free. I use the quotations for a reason, so let me explain.

You walk into the actual weight gym, and head across the room to a double doorframe on the other side. Once in the doorway, you drop your bag and throw your climbing shoes on. The climbing gym is probably 10 feet wide and certainly no more than 30 feet long. It's confusing too, with outrageous tape patterns marking the different boulders. Super old school. Sometimes you have a thick white strip with a thin little red strip on top, which is different than and thick wide strip and a medium red strip on top. 

Holden on some credit card crimps

We climbed for a couple hours and I swear my fingers are still sore two days later. No wonder Holden got so strong so quickly. I thought the people were nice too. No one was climbing there because they thought it was cool because it really wasn't. It was so old and dilapidated and dusty and polished and confusing and the boulder problem which required stemming across the entire double door entrance of the gym felt impossible.

They even had an Egg replica
(between 1 and 6 grades easier though)

    The next night we hit an urban crack Holden spotted. It start with easy but thin hands and required a few pretty tough ring lock moves higher up (at least tough for us). Very classic and possibly a first builder ascent? We think maybe. It's called "Holdens Crack". It was scary though. I'm terrible at ring locks and was above my red cam shoved into the dirty concrete crack when I lunged for the lip and managed to stick to the wet piece of metal which made up the lip of the wall. I heaved my body over with great relief and laughed with disbelief that I hadn't taken the whip.

Holden in the thin crux

    Plane's boarding now so I'll report back from Mexico shortly!