Make it a blessing.

Not my image, taken from http://www.mountainalbum.com.
I think it helps explain the allure Mt. Olympus holds though.

A finger injury is a real bummer for a climber, and unfortunately I drew the short straw (metaphorically) this summer. So since I was nursing my first finger injury in years, I thought it would be a perfect time to visit some old friends.

Mount Olympus is special. I am not sure I can quantify what it is, but I have long had a fascination with it.  With miles of easy terrain, it is a perfect place to climb without actually stressing anything that shouldn't be. Naturally once I had visited the slabs, I just couldn't get enough.

"wow, this is x-treme!" Despite rain clouds literally everywhere,
we decided to go check it out anyway. Sometimes you just have
to go rub your nose in it.

Our winter and spring were switched. Winter
was terribly dry and spring horribly wet....

...luckily between weather systems (and my
school schedule) we have been managing to sneak
 into the hills to maintain our (my) sanity.

How can you not love the slabs?

My first time up the slabs was when I was 14. We belayed every foot
and it took more than 13 hours round trip to complete it.

Motivated to move faster, I resolved to return later and give a shot at moving fast. I revisited the slabs and pulled out a time of 1h 31min roundtrip car-top of the slabs-car from the trailhead at Thousand Oaks Circle. I'm definitely not a runner and even stopped (though not the clock) and chatted for a few minutes during it so it felt good to pull a reasonable time out. Jared Campbell's record time of 1h 1min is quite impressive, and very inspiring. I felt the urge to start running and try again in the spring when there is lots of snow over the rock talus and I can bomb the descent down the Apollo Couloir like he did (I took the standard descent down climbing to the west then back down the ascent gully), visible in the video below. I don't feel ready to be a runner yet, so we'll see. I'm already antsy to get back onto technical terrain.

Following that urge, I wanted to climb many of the routes I began on.

Dance of the pregnant wildebeest. Officially known as 5.8,
 though sandbagged as wildly harder; I know of no other
5.8 that overhangs at least 10 feet from the start. This
was one of the first routes I ever did outside.

With an injury, a finger injury especially, it is easy to have a fatalistic approach. Now I have to take 2 months off, now I can't send my 5.XXD project, now I can only do yoga and run, etc. Having thought all of those at one time or another, I can now say there are more options. Climbing easy routes, especially jug hauls, doing long link ups of cruiser ridges in the alpine, bolting, and search for new routes are all great ways to pass the few weeks it takes before you can really start cranking again. And lets be honest, it is fun to revisit old friends.