Until a friend of mine invited me on a climbing trip to Horse Pens 40, I had never even heard of the place. In fact, I didn’t even realize there was outdoor climbing in Alabama, period. But after hearing that it was her favorite place to go bouldering, John and I quickly agreed to come along. As the trip approached, however, everything we read and everyone we talked to described HP40 as “sandstone slopers”. The first video I ran across was of people trying a classic problem which involves a running jump-start to a sloper, finishing with a mantle. And that was it.
Let me state it simply – I can’t stand slopers. I like feeling confident in my handholds, and I have never had the hand strength or size to be very successful on slopers. Most of my outdoor climbing experience is on limestone, where a sloper provides little or no help, so my sloper experience was limited to indoor problems. At the climbing gym, every time they stick a sloper in the middle of a route, I feel like it ruins it.
On top of that, less than one week before we were supposed to leave for the trip, John took a bad fall on a boulder problem and seriously sprained his ankle. He couldn’t put weight on it at all for a few days, and even after five days the swelling and bruising had barely let up. Clearly he wasn’t going on the trip. Since we had planned to drive there in order to meet up with others who were flying, I took this opportunity to bow out of the trip. But a few days before leaving, my friend decided to exchange her flight and also drive out there. I eventually agreed, despite the fact that I was less than thrilled about climbing a bunch of slopers while John was injured at home.
We left immediately after work on a Thursday and drove straight through the night. With the lucky role of driving the 3am-7am shift, I spent a majority of it pinching myself – hard – in an effort to stay alert. We arrived completely exhausted and barely functional, only to find that the person running the check-in was nowhere to be found (we eventually called and woke him up). In addition a vicious cold front had just rolled in, with an expected high of only 48 degrees and a low of 28 (during a season where it usually gets up to 70), along with an unfortunate bout of rain leaving our potential climbs soaking wet.
After finally getting access to our cabin, we deliriously stumbled through a few easier boulder problems before deciding that the top-outs were dangerously wet and giving up to take a nap. However, we were determined to take advantage of our limited time there so – despite the near freezing temperature and still damp rock – we set out for more climbing as the sun was starting to set. Less than 30 minutes later, raindrops started falling lightly again. We ignored it at first, until it made a sudden shift. We stumbled back through violent wind, stinging raindrops, and almost zero visibility before collapsing in our cabin only to find that the power had gone out on the entire mountain.
Yet, somehow with everything stacked against this trip, it ended up being spectacular. We thanked our lucky stars that we decided to sleep in a cabin and turned the black-out into an opportunity to do what any self-respecting climber would: use the strobe mode on our headlamps to have a cabin dance party!
And although the cold persisted, the sun arrived the next morning to dry out the rock. The climbs were amazing, and consisted of a lot more than just slopers. However, I also learned that a sandstone sloper is completely different than an indoor or limestone sloper, and against all odds my favorite problem ended up being Bum Boy – a climb made up of nothing but slopers.
By the end of the weekend, my fingers were raw, my body was sore, and I was exhausted. But I was also on a climbers-high from the excitement of sending some great problems and coming away with some great memories:
Such as feeling out the handholds on Lay it Down and Chasers and wondering how it would ever be possible to hang on to them, only to flash each of them minutes later…
Or spending an hour putting together the pieces of Copa Cabana and Eight Ball, resulting in super satisfying finishes…
Or working problems like Lowdown and Crucifix, which, while I could not put them together, provided exciting moves that were satisfying in themselves…
Or getting completely shut down on Redneck, only to have a local girl come climb it, making it look so effortless that we were all inspired to give it another shot. We all got shut down again, but it was still fun…
But nothing beat the thrill I felt topping out on Bumboy after getting so close on numerous attempts. I ended up using my own unique beta, which involved me practically horizontal on slopers. Once I finally got the hold I had been aiming for (a slightly better sloper) I was so determined to finish that I scraped my chin raw using it as an extra hold. Reaching the top left me with an adrenaline rush that had me grinning from ear-to-ear for hours.
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