Paul Robinson

Paul Robinson Instagram – Driving to the airport on Friday afternoon, I almost turned around and went back home due to feeling like I was starting to get a cold. Fortunately, I decided to make the trip down to hueco tanks for the 2024 @americanalpine Hueco Rock Rodeo. After a not so great night of sleep, I got the list of climbs for the rodeo and started to make a strategy for the day for the 6 climbs I hoped to be able to climb. With an incredibly stacked field, I knew it was going to have to be high risk for a possible high reward. 7 hours of climbing and 6 climbs meant that I would need to send 1 climb nearly every hour. @frank__decaro and I decided the spur for the majority of the day was going to be my best bet. I began the day by warming up on the top of “the machinist” and then refamiliarized myself with the crux moves. I made an ascent of the machinist (video 1) a little before 11 am and then moved onto “nagual.” I took 30 mins to relax, eat some snacks and recover. I quickly sent “nagual,” (video 2) again and then made my way to “Couer De Leon,” a little bit before noon. “Couer,” ended up putting up a bit of a fight. I took my time but it ended up taking a little over an hour to climb (video 3 in the underwear to get the right friction w the knee pad 🤣). From there the climbs I knew that were going to be hardest for me were done. I just needed to keep it together, climb well, and I could have the day Frank and I had planned for myself. I sent “crown of Aragorn,” quickly. We packed up and made our way to “full Monty.” I did the top once and then sent from the bottom (video 4). At this point, exhaustion was setting in. I had 5/6 climbs done and it was only 2:50. “The flame” was going to be my final climb of the day. I saved the easiest for last and thankfully with a few minor beta tweaks and one unfortunate dab at the top out, I ended up finding myself climbing out of the hole for the send. Frank mentioned we could go over to east and I could try “Li.” At this point, I had no clue if I was winning or losing. We made the trek over the top of East and down the “Li.” I immediately knew I was way too tired to climb anything else that day and quickly called it. More in comments. | Posted on 19/Feb/2024 23:24:32