SOUTHERN SMOKE DIRECT (14d/9a) ⚠️Volume warning ⚠️ This one means a lot. Southern smoke was my first 14c and I climbed it during online Covid school back in March 2021. The next season I came back to the RRG and had a play on the direct moves (first clip). I knew that session that it was above my head. It certainly felt like the hardest moves I’d ever tried but something about that intrigued me. Over the next year I had the occasional short session on these few moves with essentially no progress beyond what you see in clip 1. These sessions were sporadic and very short, basically a check-in to see where I was at. That was until last fall...with @alexander_morres bringing the stoke I actually started making real progress. I adopted an approach I’d never tried before in a route. I would be on top rope set up for the boulder and basically have a bouldering session where I’d try 5-10 times with just a few minutes rest in between and then take longer breaks (to belay and not just be on the route all day) before repeating. It worked incredibly well and I started to feel actually close, and like my body and mind were adapting in the ways they needed to do the boulder. Even still, I just knew I wasn’t strong enough to do it if 30+ tries later I was only sort of close to getting to the 14c start. Cut to this trip. I had it in my mind that I’d try again, just to check in. I wasn’t particularly optimistic, but working with my coach @hadley_joshua @latticetraining was holding me accountable to prepare well and tune up my bouldering during the few weeks leading up to my trip. We had 3 perfect weather days where I knew it’d be too warm after. I didn’t put to much pressure on but stayed motivated. Day 2 I sent the boulder for the first time, falling in the ultra perm crux. Day 3 was our last good weather day. I was second day on but it was splitter weather. I pulled on and did the boulder way more quickly than the previous day but pumped out 4 moves farther in the ultra perm section. 2 hours later, around 5:30 pm I tied in for another TR boulder sesh. With @cave_sebastian and @henry_ritterpusch keeping the energy up I pulled the boulder and battled my way to the top.